Page 153 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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T R UM P: N E V E R G I V E U P

During the next five years, I was busy with my other proj-
ects, which included the Commodore/Hyatt renovation, Trump
Tower, and Atlantic City. At the same time, government subsi-
dies dropped for the sort of housing I was considering for the
location. In addition, I had great opposition from the West Side
community, which was notorious for their reluctance to change.
It was a tough situation, and I was busy with other things.
So I gave up my original option in 1979, and Penn Central sold
the rail yards to someone else. The team they sold it to was
smart, but they didn’t have much experience in New York. You
need a solid knowledge of rezoning, which is a complex fact of
the real estate business in this city. They finally got the zoning
they needed, but erred in giving too many unnecessary conces-
sions to the city in addition to many other mistakes, and they
were forced to sell out. This was a huge development and they
weren’t prepared for what it entailed, nor did they know how to
promote it.
I wasn’t surprised to receive a call in 1984 telling me they
were interested in selling. I agreed to buy it for $100 million
dollars. That’s about $1 million per acre for waterfront property
in midtown Manhattan. If you consider that the Coliseum site
(now the Time Warner Building at Columbus Circle)—which is
not too far from the rail yards and is very small in comparison—
was sold for $500 million very shortly after I bought the rail
yards, you can see that it was a tremendous deal.
That was 1984, and now it’s 2007. Trump Place, which is
comprised of 16 high-rise residential buildings overlooking the
Hudson River is almost finished, but not quite. It has been quite
a ride, but let’s get back to how it happened.
I realized I’d have to make this project beneficial and attrac-
tive to the city in the hope they would give me the zoning I
needed. What that would be, I didn’t yet know, but by coinci-
dence shortly after I bought the rail yards, NBC announced
they were looking to relocate. They’d been at Rockefeller Cen-

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