Ah, I take back what I said about the other public garden here at Trump Tower. I mean, no I don’t take it back, the first space on level 4 has little to recommend it. This, on the other hand, is sweet. The fifth level garden has tables and chairs and a constant din of noise that is handily erased by noise cancelling headphones. At the moment this area is also basking in the summer sunshine. It is also mostly deserted. Feels like I found something secret.
My mother had no affection for Donald Trump. I bought her a music box for Christmas in 1990, but she never played it after I told her I bought it at the Trump Tower.
What has happened to the shops here? There used to be so many. Tower Records in the basement was the signature shop for some time but prior to that there were numerous smaller salons and specialty shops. The rule as I heard it was that no specific rent was charged, you paid the building a percentage of your monthly income. The more you made the less likely you were to get kicked out. Looks like almost everybody got kicked out.
I was not paying attention to overheard chitchat but I wonder if visitors here feel a certain charge from being at the residence of a potential U.S. president.
A friend of mine went to the same college as Donald Trump. For as long as I’ve known him (20+ years) he has repeated the anecdote countless time: No one at the Wharton Business School or the host university remembers Donald Trump being there. Now that’s a pretty innocuous anecdote, as my friend readily admits. Trumps name appears in the yearbook but no picture, and Trump’s claim that he graduated top of his class has been roundly rebuffed by alumni who point out that no class rankings were ever compiled.
A friend of mine had an interesting follow-on to the speculation. What if Trump hired someone to go to Wharton in his place, as a surrogate. Wealthy draft dodgers were said to have done this in those days, though I know of no concrete evidence to verify that it ever actually happened even once. But Trump’s opaque references to his college years offer little insight into what he actually did there. he did not need Wharton, certainly, not with his background.
My friend got a bunch of media attention for his story about how no one he knew in college remembered Trump being there, and eventually this led reporters to find someone who said he remembered Trump well, and that he was a “really nice guy.” That sounds like it puts the story to rest, except that Trump is not widely considered a “nice guy” among his business peers. Or is he? I do not know, but if the person that was remembered as being Trump bears no resemblance to the Trump of today then maybe it lends more credence to the notion of the surrogate student hired to attend Wharton in Donald’s place.
Or maybe it does nothing of the sort.
This public space is definitely a keeper. If it is always like this, at least. I need to head home soon but but want to discover more of these spaces for tomorrow’s excursions, or next week more likely.
