If Donald Trump Didn’t Exist, We’d Have To Invent Him

Does the Village Voice find resonance in the Trump SoHo story? Does Nat Hentoff shit in the woods? (That’s not rhetorical):

With customary bravado, Donald Trump unveiled his new plan for Soho on national TV. He was sitting onstage before a live audience, filming the final episode of his hit reality show The Apprentice on June 5. Cameras zoomed in on the real estate magnate, his trademark squint set beneath his trademark hairstyle, as he announced the big prize for the show’s winner: managing construction of a mega–condominium-hotel on Spring Street.

“Located in the center of Manhattan’s chic artist enclave, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Soho is the site of my latest development,” he trumpeted, as scenes from the trendy neighborhood flashed by. “This 50-story building is the first condominium-hotel in the city, with world-class accommodations and panoramic views.”

. . .

But in real life, things don’t seem quite so smooth. Over the past two months, a ground war has begun against Trump and his developer partners, with preservationists, residents, and business advocates saying the proposal amounts to an apartment tower that merely masquerades as a hotel. They’re convinced it violates the area’s zoning code, which allows industrial and commercial outlets, not residences. Trump may rule on television, but in Gotham he’s fighting a grassroots campaign of letter writing and phone calls to city officials. And he may be losing. On July 13, the resisters won backing from a Community Board 2 subcommittee, which rejected the plan unanimously.

“He is using this as a Trojan horse to build residences,” charges Sean Sweeney, of the Soho Alliance, referring to the Donald, of course. “He’s going around the zoning here. It’s typical Trump arrogance.”

. . .

Opponents readily admit they have a visceral reaction to the proposed height, not to mention the traffic it might bring. Some, like the Soho Alliance’s Sweeney, admit a visceral reaction to the Donald himself. “The guy repulses me,” the activist confides. With his flamboyance, his glitziness, Trump is totally out of keeping with what Sweeney calls the “downtown aesthetic.” “Trump must think he’s going to transform this neighborhood,” he says, walking past the Spring Street lot. Sweeney expects the tycoon would make the area so glitzy, so tacky, it’ll be like Atlantic City. He invokes the spirit of Jane Jacobs, who proved that enough small people, sufficiently mad, can stymie a big developer.

“It would be hilarious if this project doesn’t get done,” he says devilishly. “It would be like egg on his face.”

See also: You Can’t Stop The Donald, You Can Only Hope To Contain Him.