Trump directs demolition on part of White House for ballroom despite lacking construction approval

[tanyev]

8. Much like the time Trump destroyed the Art Deco friezes he'd promised to give to the Met.

When journalists inquired of the Trump Organization about the existence of the two limestone Art Deco friezes, a spokesperson going by the name John Barron replied: three independent experts had found that the works had “no artistic value” and were worth at most an estimated $9,000. According to “Barron,” the removal would have cost $32,000 and would have meant a week and a half delay of the demolition work. The alleged costs for the delay were later calculated by Trump’s side to be $500,000. The next day “Barron” was quoted as saying that the bronze latticework that had hung over the entrance to the Bonwit Teller building was also missing: “We don’t know what happened to it.” The artist Otto J. Teegan, who had designed the piece in 1930, responded, “It’s not a thing you could slip in your coat and walk away with.” “It’s odd that a person like Trump, who is spending $80 million or $100 million on this building, should squirm that it might cost as much as $32,000 to take down those panels.”

The journalists didn’t give up searching for these artworks that had been promised to the American public. Three days later, the New York Times wrote, “Repeated efforts over the last three days to reach Mr. Trump have been unavailing.” On the fourth day, the real estate developer contacted the journalists and explained that he had ordered the destruction of the Bonwit Teller reliefs himself: “Because their removal could have cost more than $500,000 in taxes, demolition delays and other expenses, and might have endangered passing pedestrians on Fifth Avenue. ‘My biggest concern was the safety of people on the street below,’ said the 33-year-old developer, who contended that cranes, scaffolding and the most careful handling could not have assured the safe removal of the cracked and weathered two-ton limestone panels from high on the building’s facade. ‘If one of those stones had slipped,’ he said, ‘people could have been killed. To me, it would not have been worth that kind of risk.'” In truth, Trump’s biographer Harry Hurt III confirmed, Trump himself ensured that the workers were told to remove the bronze latticework over the entrance with blowtorches, separate the friezes from the walls with jackhammers and break them off with crowbars, and throw them down into the interior of the building where they shattered into a million pieces. Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the board of trustees of the Met, was among those outraged and told The New York Times in June 1980: “How extraordinary. I know that there was an offer of a gift in the event that the objects could be saved. I would think that would be sufficient to guide them in their actions. We are certainly very disappointed and quite surprised.” Hawkins dismissed with a single sentence Trump’s argument that the sculptures had no value: “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?” “The reliefs are as important as the sculptures on the Rockefeller building,” elaborated the gallerist Robert Miller, who had assessed the reliefs earlier. “They’ll never be made again.”

Today as president Trump labels everything that doesn’t conform to his political ideas “fake news,” but he had to admit that he had adopted a false identity to explain his point of view to the public. The alleged press spokesperson John Barron, who sometimes called himself Baron and occasionally identified himself as vice president of the Trump Organization, was none other than Trump himself. In a legal proceeding in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan concerning the illegal employment of Polish workers in the building of Trump Tower for $4 an hour Trump admitted that he and one of his executives have used the name John Barron in some their business dealings. Outside the courthouse, he explained confidently: “Lots of people use pen names. Ernest Hemingway used one.” Sometimes he used the alias “John Miller” for statements such as those about famous women like Madonna or Kim Bassinger who supposedly wanted to meet Trump. In March 2006, Melania and Donald Trump named their son Barron.

Two contemptuous statements Trump made later in 1980 show that the Bonwit Teller affair, which did long-term damage to his reputation in New York’s intellectual circles, continued to trouble Trump. At an event in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, Trump, its owner, expressed his opinion about the table decorations made out of gold mylar and the lion’s head medallions over the entrance to the ballroom: “Real art, not like the junk I destroyed at Bonwit Teller.”

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/donald-trump-bonwit-teller-friezes-met-2132673