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TR U M P STR A TEGI ES FO R R E A L ESTA TE

people are going to go right to that “20% a year.” They’re not going
to delve into the details. They’re enamored with the 20%.
When Trump has a person interested in a transaction, he will do
everything he can to make his involvement in that transaction easy.
For example, “I’ll do this so you don’t have to; I’ll send you this; I’ll
take care of that phone call.” You want to keep other people, as much
as possible, out of the nitty gritty of the actual transaction, so you
can control the details. Take advantage of the fact that most people
are not willing to spend time on preparation.
Trump spent huge amounts of time preparing for the New York
City Board of Estimate, which first met to approve his entire Com-
modore transaction in late December 1975. One of the things he did
a week beforehand, was to go to Victor Palmieri, the executive from
Penn Central Railroad who owned the Commodore Hotel and ex-
plain to him that if he wanted the city to take our abatement case se-
riously, we needed to get out the message that the Commodore was
going downhill fast and that it was not going to survive much longer.
Palmieri agreed with him. On December 12, Palmieri made a public
announcement to the media that the Commodore Hotel had lost an-
other $1.2 million during 1975, was anticipating worse losses in
1976, and as a result intended to shut down the hotel permanently no
later then June 30, 1976. This announcement by itself didn’t change
the Board of Estimate’s mind, but they agreed to hold several more
meetings with Trump. However, from the beginning of negotiations,
the single event that nobody in city government wanted to see was the
Commodore closed down and boarded up. So the news release prior
to the December meeting helped get the Board of Estimates worried
about a closing of the Commodore. Then, next spring, on May 12,
1976, one week before the Board of Estimate, for the fourth time, was
to vote on Trump’s tax abatement, Trump got Palmieri to announce
that Penn Central would permanently close the Commodore in six
days. Palmieri explained to the media that the occupancy had de-

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