Escalating mob wars turned Greater Cleveland into the bombing capital of America in 1976.

The 37 bombings in Cuyahoga County, including 21 in Cleveland, ranked No. 1 in the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

"There's nothing to compare it with now in this country," said Rick Porrello, Lyndhurst police chief and author of "To Kill the Irishman," the basis of the new movie about gangster Danny Greene. "These days, the bombings are done by terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle East."

Full Danny Greene coverage

Details on the movie, Greene's life and links to much more in

From mobster Angelo Lonardo's federal testimony,

From The Plain Dealer archives:

Car bombs were a preferred weapon of mobsters in the 1970s. You could kill someone fairly cheaply, from a distance (using a remote detonator), and bombs tended to obliterate much of the evidence. Bombs were also set off at homes and businesses.

"A bombing sends a real message. It commands a lot of attention," said Porrello. "Danny Greene was said to have paid Art Sneperger, his main explosives guy, extra if the bombing generated news coverage. Art got paid a bonus if the thing got on television or in the newspapers."

Sneperger made his own headlines. He was killed in Cleveland Heights on Halloween night in 1971 when a bomb he was preparing to plant in a car belonging to Greene's friend-turned-enemy Mike Frato exploded.

The record numbers in 1976 didn't even include the era's three most famous hits.

• Racketeer Shondor Birns, 70, once considered Cleveland's Public Enemy No. 1, spent the evening of March 29, 1975, at a favorite spot: Christy's Lounge, a strip club on Detroit Avenue near West 25th Street, just across from St. Malachi Catholic Church. When he reached to start the ignition of his Lincoln Continental Mark IV, a bomb blew him, literally, to pieces.

• John Nardi, 61, was secretary-treasurer of Vending Machine Service Employees Local 410. Federal agents ranked him high in the Cleveland mob's chain of command. On May 17, 1977, Nardi left his Teamsters office at 2070 East 22nd St. and walked over to his Olds 98. The bomb that killed him, packed with pounds of nuts and bolts to act as shrapnel, was not in his car but in the Pontiac parked next to his. Police called it a "Trojan Horse attack."

• Greene went to see his dentist on the afternoon of Oct. 6, 1977, at the Brainard Place Medical Center in Lyndhurst, just off I-271. The mobsters out to kill him had tapped his phone and knew the appointment's time and place. Greene had been switching cars for weeks to throw off potential bombers. As with Nardi's killing, the explosives were placed in a car, a Chevy Nova, parked next to Greene's Lincoln Continental after he walked inside. He was 47.

The hits on Nardi and Birns were never officially solved, though Cleveland police long believed Greene was responsible for killing Birns, a colorful criminal arrested more than 50 times. Birns merits his own movie.