Jeffrey Miller, killed in the Kent State Massacre, was from Long Island. His killing resulted in protests around Long Island and Manhattan, including a gathering of about 1000 people on Wall Street on 8 May 1970. Around noon, 400 organized Nixon-supporting construction workers attacked the protestors, beating them severely with their tools. The construction workers were soon joined by around 800 office workers. Rioters went on to attack other nearby buildings, including Pace University, where they beat completely uninvolved students and professors.
The NYPD supported the rioters, or at least did nothing to stop them. Of six people arrested, only one was a construction worker.
The labour movement at the time was extremely divided over the Vietnam War and Nixon's broader anti-communist agenda. Peter Brennan, the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, was a Nixon supporter and vehement anti-communist who eventually became Nixon's secretary of labour. The ongoing draft was a divisive force, falling much more heavily on blue-collar workers than on the college-educated. The Hard Hat Riot was a significant turning point in American politics, with blue-collar workers turning decisively against the New Left and toward right-wing nationalism.