The Hardhat Riot by David Paul Kuhn

Author:David Paul Kuhn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Scores of young people, at times beaten unconscious, were brought to a first aid station inside Trinity Church during the Hardhat Riot. Throughout the church, as one reporter noted, victims crammed aisles with “broken teeth, broken noses, and bloodied heads,” sitting, waiting, “stunned, crying, and cursing.” (V. Shibla/The New York Post/Getty)

Vicar Woodward “never thought” he would “see the day when I would stand behind the door of my church and see it stormed.”

Inside Trinity Church, one demonstrator lay in the low light, beneath the candle-adorned alter, eerily limp. A bearded medic kneeled over him and held his hand. On the other side of him, a young woman sat turned away, openmouthed, her eyes wide and distraught.

Outside, one medic said he had offered first aid to a hardhat who twisted his ankle. The workman “contemptuously” rebuffed him and limped off.

A crowd control unit was redeployed to Federal Hall. Hundreds of hardhats descended upon the plaza once more. Two thousand others pushed close. Scores had followed the men since noontime, including electrical salesman Bob Barber. There were stragglers, peripheral packs of men who had gone off on their own. Some would not pacify. But at Federal Hall, as the men regrouped at the steps, many were cheerful. They felt victorious. Still they sang the “Marines’ Hymn.” Still more “God Bless America.” Still more chanted for the “U—S—A.”

Still trouble persisted. One young man in cast-off Army fatigues climbed atop a newsstand. He photographed the workers. Hardhats knocked him off the kiosk and gave him a thrashing. A local TV news assistant hurried to his aid and was “bloodied in the melee.” Freelance photographer Howard Petrick likely observed the same incident and approached some policemen.

“Why don’t you do something about that photographer that was pushed off the newsstand?” he asked.

“Go to hell,” a cop replied. “Mind your own business.”

A half-block south of Federal Hall, people ran to Patrolman James McKeon. They were shouting, panting, telling him of a fight thirty feet away. McKeon could not see it through the “huge street crowd.” He said, “I immediately pushed my way through.” He saw a 22-year-old laborer, bent over, punching down at another young man with a “bright colored sports jacket,” who was “trying to defend himself” from his back. The laborer was screaming, “Peace! Peace!”

McKeon grabbed the laborer. He began to arrest him. The laborer elbowed McKeon in his midsection and broke away. The cop chased him fifteen feet. McKeon grabbed him again. The laborer broke free again. McKeon chased him a dozen more feet. The cop swung his baton and it cracked off the laborer’s head and knocked him to the ground. Other cops ran over. The bloody laborer was cuffed.

On Broadway, Paul Petraro watched students “yelling at workers” and “a melee developed.” A few cops pulled fighters apart.

Near Exchange Place and Broadway, in an alleyway, 17-year-old Jon Kasso walked with a friend. The two boys turned up Broadway and ran into at least a hundred hardhats. Kasso’s friend raised his hand and made a peace sign.

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