The Bonwit Teller Project and Trump’s Employment and Exploitation of Illegal Aliens

 

The Bonwit Teller Project 

and Trump’s  Employment  and Exploitation of 

Illegal Aliens

The Bonwit Teller Project
Prior to his demolishing of this building, Donald Trump promised to donate the 1929 art deco sculptures from the building to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead they simply disappeared during demolition 

               

                The story of the Bonwit Teller Department Store and its demolishment and the rebuilding of Trump Towers on the site is a complex story. In 1978, Trump secured an option to buy on the decaying Bonwit Teller Department Store. ^[1]  He then needed to obtain control of the ground below the property which was owned by an insurance company and the air rights above, controlled by Tiffany Jewelers, located next door. However, now that he was a successful real estate magnate who had built the Grand Hyatt, it was easy enough to acquire a loan from the Chase Manhattan Bank that would enable him to purchase those.

                One of the next parts of the project was to demolish the old building so that it could be replaced. Demolishing a 12 story, downtown, decaying department store in Manhattan is no easy feat. Additionally, there was concern over what would happen to parts of the old building, specifically the large, bronze grillwork featuring art deco sculptures of 15 foot tall goddesses dating from 1930 that emblazoned the entrance to the store and building.^[2]

                Many in the city, particularly in art circles, expressed concern for the fate of these sculptures and the grill work. If the building were demolished, what would happen to these pieces of architectural art? Complaints and concerns were voiced publicly. Trump responded by promising to save the pieces during the demolition and donate them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if removing them was not prohibitively expensive.

The 8th Floor Sculpture from the
Bonwit Teller Building. Now
long gone despite Trump's promises.

                As time went on, the project became notorious among Trump critics because of his use of illegal alien workers (what? Another instance of illegal immigrants in Trump’s life? How many are there?)  For part of the work, instead of hiring experienced demolition contractors, Trump contracted with a window washing company owned by a Polish émigré. The company provided over 200 workers, all or most of them undocumented workers from Poland. They often worked without hard hats or other safety gear. Some lived at the construction site and slept on the cold, concrete floor.  Their payment was irregular, and they were often cheated.  

                When workers complained, and allegedly threatened to throw Thomas Macari, Trump’s associate who closely watched over the project, with being dangled over the edge of the building, things changed but stayed messy. To this day shady accusations of several kinds follow the project, many documented. These include use of mob-connected union labor, using Trump and Roy Cohn’s personal connections to avoid inspection by the city and state agencies, threatening phone calls against workers and contractors from “John Barron,” Trump’s frequent alter-ego, and ultimately a lawsuit filed against Trump by the workers, a lawsuit that Trump and his lawyers delayed at every opportunity but nevertheless lost.  Ultimately, years later, a judge awarded the workers $325,000.

                Additionally, Trump failed to donate the sculptures and art deco front to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They disappeared or were destroyed during the demolition.

The Bonwit Teller site later became the site for Trump Towers.^[3]

                Ivanka helped. According to one source, Donald would occasionally encourage or allow her to go out and supervise the plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and steelworkers even though she knew nothing about these trades.  ^[4]

               

Finally, my books . . . 

Yeah, I've written books. Please check them out and see if they interest you.

(As if, being the author of these books does not already show bias, please be advised that if you purchase here, I receive a commission. The folks at Amazon wish to make it clear that this is an advertisement.) 

  

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[1] An “option to buy” gives the purchaser the right to buy a piece of real estate at a fixed, specified price for a fixed specified period of time.
“What is an Option to Buy Contract and How it Protects You,” from Real Estate Sales Blog.
https://www.realestatesalesllc.com/real-estate/option-buy-contract-protects/

[2] “The Historic Building Donald Trump Demolished to Build Trump Tower,” by Sam Dangremond, August 18, 2017. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a12030857/donald-trump-bonwit-teller/

 

[3]  Pages 69-76, Johnston, David Cay. “The Making of Donald Trump.” ( 2016. 2017. Melville House. Brooklyn.)

Pages 85-91, Kranish, Michael and Fisher, Marc “Trump revealed -The Definitive Biography of the 45^th President.” ( 2016, Scribner, New York)

The amount of the settlement came from Johnston, page 74.

If you get a chance to watch the August 17, 2017 SNL Weekend Live segment where Tina Fey responds to Trump’s alleged desire to preserve historical monuments, particularly Confederate monuments, by shouting “Google Bonwit Teller!” you can now understand the reference better, if you didn’t catch it the first time.

 

[4] van Meter, Johnathan (May 1989). "That's Why the Lady is a Trump". Spy. Sussex Publishers, LLC. ISSN 0890-1759 – via Google Books at

https://books.google.com/books?id=xaCC4gI-zJkC&lpg=PA98&q=trump%20master%27s%20degree&pg=PA86&v=onepage#v=onepage&q=trump%20master's%20degree&f=true

Vinh Moc Tunnels, Vietnam, Museum and Preservation Efforts, December 2019, part one

Greetings,  In December of 2019 and January of 2020, I visited the nation of Vietnam. While there, I made a special effort to see the Vinh Moc Tunnels. The Vinh Moc Tunnels are often considered the best preserved Vietnam War tunnel system that exists today. Unlike the better known Cu Chi Tunnel System, which was created primarily by and for military use by military personnel (I am including the Viet Cong as military personnel ), the Vinh Moc Tunnels were created primarily for civilian use. They were intended as a system for safe and hidden transportation and safe shelter during the frequent American bombing raids.  (There doesn't seem to be too much easily available on the web about the Vinh Moc Tunnels. Therefore, with a recognition of all its faults and weaknesses, I offer this link to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%E1%BB%8Bnh_M%E1%BB%91c_tunnels ) 

The author, in the tunnels

In this post, I will focus on the preservation, maintenance, and upkeep aspects of the Vinh Moc tunnels. The "museum side" of things. While I am not a museum professional, and would welcome feedback from those who are, I hope to give enough information here to give some sense of how a relatively recent historical site in a developing nation is maintained.

I hope to do a few posts on my day at the tunnels. Perhaps I'll also be able to get out some old photos and can share images of the current Cu Chi tunnels (which are not, according to the Lonely Planet Guidebook, either completely authentic or accurate but do give an interesting feel for what the tunnels were like. In my opinion, both tunnels are well worth visiting if you have the time.) 

Visitors Facilities

The Vinh Moc Tunnels does have two buildings for visitors. Both are relatively primitive but informative.

There are two museum type buildings to welcome visitors. This is the one closest to the entrance. It is used primarily to show a film about the site and its history.  The film was in Vietnamese but it did have English subtitles.

Behind the site, next to the public bathrooms, chickens graze on the lawn.
There is a 2000VND fee to use the restroom and a person sits there to collect it. This is less than 10 cents.

Along the public walkway, there are many vendors stands that sell drinks and snacks.
The vendors call to visitors as they pass. "Hello, you wanta buy something?"

Modern, generally good quality walkways have been added for visitors.

More chickens on one of the less well paved, side routes for the complex.

The tunnels were originally built as bomb shelters for the local civilian population who were subjected to frequent, intensive bombing campaigns by the American Air Force. This is a display of some of the different kinds of ordinance that was dropped on the region. My understanding, and I do not have details at this time, is that one challenge in opening the site for tourism was unexploded ordinance and how to disarm it. 

Another shot of the ordinance monument / display,

Just a photo of a nearby farm house that borders on the tunnel area. I am not sure if there is any connection between the people who live inside (or their chickens) with the monument itself.

Entrances

The tunnel complex had many entrances. Historically these entrances were often kept concealed and hidden from view, something that is not desirable when tourists and other visitors come. Also, my suspicion is that the entrances were some of the most vulnerable parts of the system, most prone to collapse, and needed to be given extra reinforcement and structural support. Additionally the tunnel entrances are now used by many people every day of the week all year long, and, probably, ironically, see much more traffic than they did when the system was used a s

Obviously the entrance has been reconstructed and in a more reinforced and sturdy fashion than the original.

This portion of the tunnel entrance has been reinforced with wood, something that I am quite certain never occurred with the original. If memory serves me right, I do not think that such supports were here the first time I visited in 2007. Notice the stairs heading down.

While clearly a substandard picture, notice the two boards that cross the tunnel entrance. While easily bypassed, these are meant to warn and deter vistors that this area of the tunnel is not intended for unescorted visitors on their own. Later, with a guide ( a story that I will share in a different post ) I got to visit this area of the tunnel.

Another rebuilt tunnel entrance. This one also have a cross bar indicating that it should not be entered by unescorted visitors. 

Another entrance with wooden reinforcements.

Wooden reinforcements that show a crack in the wood and concrete reinforcements on the other side. Notice the Vietnamese language graffiti. This was not uncommon in the tunnels.

Another tunnel entrance, this one on the side of the area that borders the ocean. 

Electric Lighting

I do not believe the electric lights here were part of the original tunnel system. I believe that instead home made lanterns using oil and candles hung on the wall were a major part of the system but there may have been other parts of the tunnel available as well.

This is what the original lighting looked like. It was made out of an old bottle, perhaps one discarded by the American forces.

Internal Tunnel Maintenance

Inside the tunnels there was a lot of reinforcement of the walls being done with concrete. Here are a few photos to show such work.

The tunnel ceiling. My guess is that there is a plan to cover this with wood. Notice the bricks. I do not believe that these were used much in the original tunnels.

A rebuilt tunnel entrance made entirely of concrete.

Now this is particularly interesting. In one part of the tunnels, an area not normally open to unescorted visitors, a metal sheet covered with the red, muddy clay of the tunnels covered part of the tunnel. Down the side I could see extensive digging, and a deep, unsafe looking tunnel that went down to who knows where. Of course, I had to ask, and my guide told me that under the metal sheet there was a bomb shelter from the war days.

Of course, with all this concrete work being done, one must have wheelbarrows,
and I found a pair of them, covered with concrete in a cubby hole on the side of the tunnel.
Why waste time each day bringing them up and down, into and out of the tunnel each night?

Tourist Signs

One can't have a historical site open to the public without at least a few signs, can you?

I'm not sure if this is historically sound or if it is a modern restoration and preservation work, but there are drainage ditches next to the tunnels.

Finally, a couple photos of yours truly, the author, 

exploring the tunnels

A Vietnamese language travel video on the tunnels

Books for Sale

(just FYI, at this time, I am straightening out an issue with Amazon. So I won't actually get credit if you buy any of these books --except, of course, the books by me at the end, but the first five won't get me anything or support this blog. Nevertheless, they are all excellent books and I enjoyed them all.) 

FINALLY

books by me. If you really want to support this blog,or enjoy it and wish to see what else I've done, please check this out. Thanks.