Setaro House

The exploding jacket story keeps getting stranger.

According to the articles, the explosives were found tied to an Italian band jacket — the kind worn by local musicians or marching groups in the immigrant community.

But that raises the real question:

Why was this man wearing or carrying that jacket in the first place?
And why were bombs hidden inside it?

Moments later, he’s badly injured and running back toward the West End Hotel — the same building that keeps showing up again and again in this story.

Was it an accident?
Labor intimidation?
A setup?
Or something much bigger?

We’re still following the trail.

Inside the basement of Brothers, Casey asked about one of the stranger stories we’ve uncovered: the “exploding jacket.”

It ties back to the labor fights of the early 1900s, when strikes could turn violent and intimidation was part of the pressure campaign. If someone didn’t stand with the group, the message could come fast — a porch blown up, a threat made, or in this case… a story about explosives hidden in a jacket.

Before Prohibition fully took over the headlines, Red Bank was already a place of labor battles, immigrant struggles, and backroom tension.

And somehow, we’re talking about all of it in the basement of a pizza place.

When Casey Webb says, “I want to go in there,” you go in there.

We were in the basement of what was once the West End Hotel — now Brothers — a building with layers of Red Bank history that go back before the local newspapers were even documenting the town in detail.

This was more than just an old hotel. It was once tied to an underground brewery, Prohibition raids, John Calandriello’s bootlegging network, and the Setaro safe house that sat right next door on Morford Place.

With , , and Setaro House, we’re continuing to follow the trail beneath one of Red Bank’s most familiar places.

Sometimes history isn’t hidden in an archive.
Sometimes it’s behind an old basement door.