Page 42 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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I L OVE A G OOD F IGHT

a covert operation is beyond me, but you get the idea. There
were demonstrations and neighborhood alliances that made it
clear that I would not be receiving a warm welcome. So what
else is new? Meanwhile, the silent majority of the neighborhood
actually supported the project and saw it for what it is: a major
attraction for tourism and business. The project will signifi-
cantly improve a neighborhood that had been artificially sup-
pressed for years as a result of its antiquated manufacturing
zoning.
Despite the very vocal minority, I wasn’t about to be slowed
down. We started excavation in 2006 even though we had not
yet received approval to build above ground.
Then another problem arose.
In December, the excavating contractors came across some
human remains that were later determined to be about a century
old. We immediately and voluntarily halted work. The police
arrived, and the city ordered us to stop work on the lot alto-
gether. This may not have been legal, but we agreed. We then
hired a team of archeologists to excavate and identify the
remains. At this point, what we didn’t need was more publicity
while waiting for approval, but of course it made the news, and
one director of a city preservation society quipped that we
should rename the project Trump Condo Hotel & Mausoleum.
It’s always something, isn’t it? In the end and despite all of the
hoopla in the press, by attacking the skeleton problem immedi-
ately and in force we were able to get back to work within a
week.
Then the bloggers got going on the subject of the hotel and
the discovery, and it was a big topic for a while. We were also
getting many letters from citizens and societies opposing our
constructing the building. There were demonstrations at the
site, and the controversy went on for close to a year. Addition-
ally, we were accused of building a 45-story target for a terrorist
attack, and there was an online cartoon that had a skeleton with

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