Trump wants to save Confederate statues, but he didnt care about the artwork on his own building

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

Trump Tower, the skyscraper that put the former real estate developer on the map, was steeped in controversy after the future President reneged on a promise to save valuable pieces of artwork.

The contentious tale goes back to 1980, about a year after Trump bought the Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Ave. and 56th St. in Manhattan.

That cross street is now home the 62-story Trump Tower, constructed by undocumented Polish workers and completed in 1983.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art offered to take a pair of sculptures from the 11-story Art Deco building, which Trump planned to raze to make way for his Trump Tower.

Trump reportedly promised to remove the statues, estimated to be worth several hundred thousand dollars, if it wasn’t too costly.

His demolition crews soon began chipping away at the 15-foot high sculptures without much warning.

John Baron, a Trump Organization executive who later turned out to be Trump in disguise, told the newspaper the preservation was scrapped because “the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-save-confederate-statues-not-artwork-article-1.3419756

And what of the Art Deco grillwork and figures? The LRB cites a Vanity Fair interview with Trump: “Who cares? Let’s say that I had given that junk to the Met. They would have just put them in their basement. I’ll never have the goodwill of the Establishment, the tastemakers of New York. Do you think, if I failed, these guys in New York would be unhappy? They would be thrilled! Because they have never tried anything on the scale that I am trying things in this city. I don’t care about their goodwill.”

https://simanaitissays.com/2017/02/23/art-deco-the-met-the-polish-brigade-trump-tower-and-truth/




http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2016/06/without-artistic-merit-donald-trump.html

[lapucelle]

1. I remember that building.

It was a heartbreaking loss.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/realestate/fifth-avenue-bonwit-teller-opulence-lost.html?_r=0

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

3. Too many beautiful NY City buildings destroyed.

And so often replaced with architecturally inferior ones. Penn Station being a particularly egregious case. What's there now is an abomination.

[fierywoman]

2. He calls Melania's nude photos art.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

5. His opinion on every matter is worthless.

Or worse.

[smirkymonkey]

4. This still makes me sick.

I remember that and I will NEVER forgive him for that. He talks about destroying Confederate statues like they are something precious, but this was some of the finest art deco architectural work in New York and he destroyed it like it was nothing. He is a disgusting hypocrite and a shameless destroyer of art.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

6. Exactly!

He wouldn't care about Art Deco as it is too restrained for his bloated, gilded, tackified rococo taste.

[smirkymonkey]

7. Of course, it wasn't covered with gold and it didn't celebrate Nazis.

Why would he want to save it? The more I think about it the more I just want to .... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

10. I know. Everything about him is infuriating. Certainly he's destroying things even more

valuable than architecture, but it still matters. What a loathsome vulgarian.

[LeftInTX]

8. Remove the Confederate statues and send them to Trump tower

He can spend his sleepless nights talking to them.......

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

9. Oh man, I love that idea.

It would be great if they could arrive at his creepy tower apartment when he was out. He'd go in and find them crowding his living room, filling his balcony, and when he went into the bathroom to tweet, he'd find a couple in the shower and one sitting astride his golden toilet like it was a stallion.

Better yet, if they could come alive and tell him, hey, even we agree, it's time our statues came down.