Page 72 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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S OMETIMES Y OU H AV E T O S W ALLOW Y OUR P RIDE

ury residential building. General Electric seemed impressed
with my ideas, and I felt good about their positive reaction to
everything I had presented. My only concern at this point was
that I was just emerging from some financial problems, so they
might be hesitant to take a chance on me.
What happened next came as a shock. Dale Frey called to
tell me that while he liked my plans a lot, they were putting the
job out to bid. They would ask some of the biggest real estate
firms in the country to put in a bid, and he hoped I’d be among
them. I was astonished by this because I had spent a lot of time
on my concept, and had explained it to them personally. Now I
had to start over and bid like a newcomer to the project.
I felt miserable and a bit outraged by this turn of events. I’d
basically be entering a public contest, which I didn’t think was nec-
essary. I was wondering if they had just been humoring me all that
time, even though they appeared to be interested and impressed
with my ideas. What could I do? I was definitely interested, I’d
already spent a lot of time and effort on this, so I finally swallowed
my pride and decided to just go for it. I like challenges and this had
become an even bigger one, not that I was happy about it. So I
worked on a fantastic and detailed presentation. When I say put
everything into what you’re doing, this was a good example.
It seemed like ages, but General Electric finally called to say
they were going with me. Being chosen by this power group to
develop this incredible site was wonderful news. Trump Interna-
tional Hotel & Tower would become a reality. It made all the
aggravation of the process worth it. Dale Frey and John Myers
at GE made it possible—they are great guys.
In 1995, we began to demolish the former Gulf & Western
tower—only the steel structure would remain. I had Philip
Johnson lined up as the architect along with Costas Kondylis &
Associates, so we were assured of a spectacular as well as elegant
building. Philip Johnson had designed the State Theater at Lin-
coln Center, which is only a few blocks away. This was an

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