For Americans who want to know what Donald Trump would do as president look at what he did in his home New York City.
He destroyed a beloved building, used illegal foreign workers, didn’t pay some of them and destroyed art deco works he had promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “After New York gave up to 90% in Tax Abatement to Trump; Donald Trump purposely smashes $200,000 in Art Sculptures he promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” reports Frederica Cade’s Blog. “The three piece semi-nude Goddess 15-foot bas-relief sculptures was a part of the Bonwit Teller building of 1929,” Cade said. What he has put forward as a fairy tale image turns out to be more like King Kong. “Thirty-five years ago, a small army of illegal immigrants (the Polish Brigade) was used to clear the site for what became the crown jewel of Donald Trump’s empire, the Daily Beast says. They slept on the site. “They were undocumented and worked ‘off the books,’” Manhattan federal Judge Charles Stewart said of the workers after they became the subject of a 1983 lawsuit. “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld.” Many wore no helmets or other safety equipment, but no safety reports were fiiled. They were often not paid. When their checks kept bouncing they sued. It was the beginning of a process. The workers won a $325,000 settlement but ultimately it was replaced with a sealed settlement 19 years after the demolition began, according to “The Making of Donald Trump,” by David Cay Johnston. Trump paid nothing for the art deco pieces the workers had smashed to pieces. The author said donating the goods for a tax deduction was a waste of time because Trump was paying no taxes during the construction years. The New York Times said, “With 12 stories of severe, almost unornamented limestone climbing to a ziggurat of setbacks, the Stewart store was the antithesis of the conventional 1928 Bergdorf Goodman one block north. Plain as the building might be, the entrance was like a spilled casket of gems: platinum, bronze, hammered aluminum, orange and yellow faience, and tinted glass backlighted at night. In 1929 American Architect magazine called it “a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store.” “At the very top of the facade were limestone relief panels of two nearly naked women brandishing large scarves, as if dancing. The architects were Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore, super-traditional Beaux-Arts designers of mansions and clubs — a puzzling choice for a such an outré building. In time the reliefs would become a Bonwit Teller signature.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/realestate/fifth-avenue-bonwit-teller-opulence-lost.html
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Robert Weller
2016 US election news and other news from the USA
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Worked in journalism, including on the Internet, for more than 40 years. Started as a news editor at the Colorado Daily at the University of Colorado, joined a small Montana newspaper, the Helena Independent-Record, and then United Press International. Archives
November 2016
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