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On January 20, 2017, Republican candidate Donald John Trump became the forty-fifth President of the United States. Prior to his bid for the presidency, Donald Trump was well known for his various real estate endeavors across the country and around the world. Most of these Trump properties are located here in New York City.
Donald Trump, who was born in Queens, New York, is the current owner of the Trump Organization (Wohl 1998). The Trump Organization is a privately owned company that was originally created by Trump’s paternal grandmother Elizabeth and father Fred in the 1920’s as Elizabeth Trump and Son. This business empire has included various business ventures and investments, including hotels, casinos, resorts, golf courses, and real estate. One of the Trump Organization’s more well-known acquisitions is the Wollman Rink in Central Park. It was purchased by the Trump Organization in 1986 and subsequently renovated. The company splits ownership and the name of the Trump Organization appears on the side of the ice rink (Kushner, Cook 2017). It is currently co-owned by the Trump Organization and Rink Management Services.
In addition to the Wollman Rink, the Trump Organization is also involved in golf courses. Trump owns the Trump Turnberry course in Scotland and is also constructing two new golf courses in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (Investopedia 2017). In addition to these courses, Trump also owns golf courses in Ireland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, California, New York, and Florida.
In New York City, Donald Trump owns the Ferry Point Golf Course located at 500 Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx. It is over 400 acres in size (Investopedia 2017). The golf course opened just two years ago in 2015. Trump did not build the course but the Trump Organization manages the property for New York City. The course was built on a garbage dump and the Trump Organization does not pay taxes for the property. According to The Washington Post, “Trump’s company made $8 million in revenue while taxpayers covered $1 million in water and sewage bills” (Harwell 2016). The deal made between the Trump Organization and New York City called for the organization to take care of the upkeep for the property while the city would use tax dollars to pay for sewer and water expenses (Harwell 2016).
Despite all of these other ventures and ownerships, the Trump Organization is probably best known for real estate, casinos, and hotels that are located both here in the United States and abroad. Real estate is the center of Trump’s empire, with properties in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, and California. International real estate endeavors include properties in Canada, Panama, Uruguay, India, the Philippines, South Korea, and Turkey. The Trump Organization owns a stake in Trump Entertainment Resorts, which was once called Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. Trump Entertainment Resorts is a subsidiary of Icahn Enterprises and the only investment it now owns is the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It’s other casino, the Trump Plaza, closed in 2014. The company declared bankruptcy four times over a twenty-five-year period, most recently in 2014. The domestic hotel properties owned and licensed by the Trump Organization are located in Illinois, Hawaii, Florida, Nevada, and New York. International locations include Ireland, Panama, and Canada (Investopedia 2017).
Trump has various hotel and resort locations in New York City, as well. Some of these properties include Trump Palace, 610 Park Avenue, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Trump Park Avenue, Trump World Tower, Trump Parc, Trump Parc East, and Trump International Hotel and Tower, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary earlier this year (Kushner, Cook 2017). Additionally, on Fifth Avenue, there is the world famous Trump Tower. It was completed in 1983 and is the home of First Lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump (Kushner, Cook 2017). Moreover, Trump Place, also called Riverside South, is located at 160 Riverside Drive. It offers breathtaking views of the Hudson and stretches almost a dozen blocks. Residents previously called for the Trump name to be taken down as a result of his presidential campaign policies, and it later was (Curbed 2016).
Another property is Trump SoHo New York, located at 246 Spring Street. Donald Trump does not have equity in this building anymore but his name remains on the building, like Trump Plaza (Curbed 2016). The building is forty-six stories tall and was completed in 2010 (Kushner, Cook 2017). Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka was a business partner. Three men of Soviet backgrounds were also partners on this project: Tevfik Arif and his friend Tamir Sepiashvili and Tamir’s son Alex. In December of 2006, a graveyard was found on the site, which was previously owned by an African Methodist Episcopal Church. The bodies were believed to be slaves and/or abolitionists. In February of 2007, during construction of the building, a Ukrainian construction worker died while working on the tower when the temporary floor beneath him gave out. He fell over forty stories and was decapitated from the fall. The contractor Bovis Lend Lease blamed his concrete subcontractor DiFama, which was co-owned by a man who was arrested for racketeering (Idov 2008).
The list of Trump properties in New York continues with The Manhattan Company Building, also called 40 Wall Street, which was originally completed in 1930. Trump purchased it in the 1990’s with the intention of converting it to condominiums. Trump renamed it the Trump Building and it now serves as office space. Donald Trump has previously tried to sell the building in 2003 and claimed he purchased it for one million dollars. (Curbed 2016). It is over seventy stories, the twelfth tallest building in New York City, and was labeled as a landmark in 1998 (Kushner, Cook 2017).
Many of the Trump Organization properties are located in the United States, but there are Trump properties abroad. In fact, the Trump Organization owns properties in nineteen cities around the world (Curbed 2016). One overseas venture of the Trump Organization is Trump International Hotel and Tower Baku. It is located in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Trump Tower Baku is located in the rundown eastern part of downtown Baku. This is surprising as, considering Trump’s business background, the building is not in or near the business district of Baku. Near the hotel, there are small shops and hookah lounges. Before the construction of the tower, the land was previously occupied by residential homes (Davidson 2017).
The Trump International Hotel and Tower Baku has not been opened yet despite it being completed. Back in 2012, the Trump Organization decided to make the preexisting tower more luxurious with views of the Caspian Sea and in 2014, when the construction boom in Baku began to come to a close, the Trump Organization decided to make the tower a hotel. The project was connected to the Azerbaijani Transportation Minister and billionaire Ziya Mammadov. The Trump Organization claims they only made $2.8 million from the licensing deal. Baku XXI Century owns the tower; this company is owned by Ziya Mammadov’s brother Elton, who was a member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan. Moreover, Ivanka Trump has helped design the hotel (Davidson 2017).
Although there is no proof of bribery or other illegal activities on the part of the Trump Organization, working with the Mammadov family may be against the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for an American company to benefit from the corruption of another company, if the American company should have been reasonably aware of the partner’s illegal activity. In other words, a company or an organization is responsible for ensuring a potential partner is not breaking the law or engaging in illicit practices. To add to the complexity and mystery of this deal, the Mammadovs have connections to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard via the Darvishis, an Iranian family. The United States considers the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a sponsor of terrorism (Davidson 2017).
Donald Trump’s Baku venture is not the only project of the organization that has had issues. The Trump Organization has been fined for breaking money-laundering laws involving the Trump Taj Mahal Casino, which opened in 1990 in Atlantic City. Additionally, the Trump Organization canceled a project in China after a Chinese partner was involved in a corruption debacle and also canceled a hotel project in Rio de Janeiro after the mayor of the Brazilian city was being investigated bribery (Davidson 2017).
In conclusion, Donald Trump, the current President of the United States, has a unique history in terms of his time with the Trump Organization, his family business. The accompanying map highlights which properties, located in New York City, that the Trump Organization owns and which are licensed. The Trump Organization owns roughly a dozen properties in New York City, including hotels, residential towers, a golf course, and an ice rink. Ultimately, the Trump Organization and President Trump are more complex than one might think.
References
Curbed. com. “Donald Trump’s New York real estate empire, mapped.” Curbed.com, July 20,
Davidson, Adam. “Donald Trump’s Worst Deal.” The New Yorker, March 13, 2017.
Fresden, Ford and Mykhyalshyn, Iaryna. “What Donald Trump Owns and Owes.” New York
Times, August 20, 2016.
Harwell, Drew. “Taxpayers built this New York golf course. Trump reaps the rewards.” The
Washington Post, August 25, 2016.
Idov, Michael. “TRUMP SOHO IS NOT AN OXYMORON.” New York 41, no. 12: 34-110.
2008.
Investopedia.com. “The Companies Donald Trump Owns.” Investopedia.com, April 12, 2017.
Kushner, Ryan and Cook, Lauren. “Donald Trump property in New York City.” Amny.com,
February 13, 2017.
Oren, Dorell, “Trump’s soft spot: Rich Russians.” USA Today, n.d.
Schouten, Fredreka, and Korte, Gregory. “Trump and the $10 billion question.” USA Today,
2015.
Trumpgolf.com. “Our Properties.” Trumpgolf.com, 2017.
Wohl, Alexander. 1998. “Donald Trump.” Biography 2, no. 6: 14. 1998.