Morgan Guaranty Trust Building

J. Pierpont Morgan, one of the richest men in the world at the turn of the 20th century, had this building constructed as his headquarters. Unfortunately he died that same year. You won't see any name plaque on this short, squat neo-classical limestone building. The Morgan Company was so famous that everyone on Wall Street knew whose building it was and the company deemed it unnecessary to inscribe its name on the building, which became known as “The House of Morgan.” There is a different kind of marking on the Wall Street side of the building. If you look closely at the building’s walls at approximately eye level, you'll see pockmarks in the limestone façade. These are holes caused by shrapnel from the Wall Street Bombing of 1920. On September 16th a horse-drawn buggy loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of cast-iron slugs exploded across the street from the House of Morgan, killing 39 people and injuring hundreds more. The culprits would never found but there is some suggestion that they were communist sympathizers who chose Wall Street because it was the personification of all that they stood against. The Morgan Company chose not to repair the façade of the building and in defiance of the criminals left the marks for all to see. The bombing is considered to be the first act of domestic terrorism.

Phvl