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T HE T RUMP T OUCH

Trump or Equitable in creating the joint venture could not thereafter
represent the venture going forward. When I told Trump of this
wrinkle he said, “George, if you can’t be the lawyer for the venture,
I’ll kill the Equitable deal.” Although I sincerely appreciated his loy-
alty to me I replied, “Donald, with the Equitable deal you get back
your entire investment immediately, all the money you need for con-
struction, and 50% of the profits, it’s too good to pass up. I’ll still
be your lawyer on the deals yet to come.” When the joint venture
with Equitable was signed I thought I would no longer be involved
with Trump Tower. I was wrong.
After I was no longer Trump’s lawyer on Trump Tower, Leonard
Kandell called me and said, “George, I want you to be my lawyer and
handle all my legal matters.” I replied, “You’ll have to get Donald’s
okay.” He said, “I already did!” I then asked him, “You’ve got a good
lawyer already, why me?” He replied, “When you negotiated and
drafted the ground lease, I saw you in action. You’re not only a lawyer
but you know the real estate business. Whatever you charge, I’ll pay.”
That’s how I got Leonard Kandell as a client and even though he died
years ago, to this day I still represent his family in real estate matters.
So Trump Tower progressed as the multi-use building as Trump
had envisioned. The purpose of the design was to get maximum
value out of the three tiers of the structure by creating a condo-
minium with three different ownership levels. The retail stores on
the bottom six floors together with the public passageway created a
vertical mall, which helped draw people into the building and was a
good use of the space because the lower floors have limited views.
The commercial office space on floors 4 through 26 offered a presti-
gious 5th Avenue address along with the high-end services that come
with tenancy in a Trump building. This space also houses the Trump
Organization headquarters where Donald and I have offices. The
Trump-Equitable joint venture maintained ownership of all floors
below the 27th floor, and received the high, stable, rents that went
with them. The most desirable floors of the building (27 through 68)
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