Too Much and Never Enough

The COVID-19 pandemic was a worldwide outbreak of coronavirus disease that was first detected in China in 2019 and later spread across the world in 2020. While President Donald Trump secretly acknowledged how real and serious the disease was, he publicly made numerous statements calling it a “hoax” and failed to effectively warn citizens that precautions should be taken. A number of other missteps and inaccurate statements resulted in Donald receiving widespread criticism during the final year of his presidency for his handling of the pandemic and its impact on Americans.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is a government agency that was created in the New Deal era in 1934 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to ensure that affordable housing was being built for the country’s growing population. Not long after the agency’s creation, it began making loan subsidies available for developers, and Fred Trump began taking advantage of the program to build all of his earliest properties.

The Trump family’s first venture in building in Manhattan was the Grand Hyatt New York, which was a renovation of the old Commodore Hotel and opened in 1980. The deal was made possible because of Fred Sr.’s connections with New York City mayor Abe Beame. In an early example of his flair for self-promotion, Donald used the media to project the notion that he had single-handedly executed the project. Trump explains that Donald’s perceived success with Grand Hyatt “paved the way for Trump Tower” (133).

The Highlander was one of Fred Sr.’s buildings in Jamaica, Queens, in New York City. In 1963, Freddy Trump and his wife Linda moved into the Highlander, and it was one of the childhood homes of the author. She writes that it “was typical of Fred’s buildings, having a grand entrance to distract from the substandard rental units” (57).

Jamaica Estates is a neighborhood in Queens, New York City, where Fred built his house and the Trump family lived. Trump explains that eventually Queens would become one of the most diverse places on the planet, but when Fred built his house, it was 95% white and “the upper middle-class neighborhood of Jamaica Estates was even whiter” (34).

Mar-a-Lago is a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, which has been owned by Donald Trump since 1985. Donald purchased Mar-a-Lago in the mid-1980s when he was deeply in debt due to his lavish lifestyle and loans that he had taken to open casinos in Atlantic City.

New York Military Academy (NYMA) is a college preparatory and boarding school north of New York City. While Donald began high school at Kew-Forest, the private school his older siblings had attended, his “fighting, bullying, [and] arguing with teachers” had gone too far and by 1959, he was sent to NYMA (49). Trump explains that sending Donald to NYMA was the idea of one of Fred Trump’s fellow Kew-Forest board members and that he agreed only because Donald’s behavior had made his father look bad.

Steeplechase Park was an amusement park in Coney Island, Brooklyn, in New York City that opened in 1897, closed in 1964, and was purchased a year later by Fred Trump. Fred planned to develop it into residential apartments, but it never occurred due to zoning issues and intense public opposition. Local residents attempted to have the park declared a landmark in order to stop the development. In response, Fred hosted a highly publicized demolition of the park’s Pavilion of Fun in which guests were invited to throw bricks through its iconic window for a small price. Trump argues that “the entire spectacle was a disaster. Sentiment, nostalgia, and community were concepts my grandfather didn’t understand” (74).

The Trump Organization, originally E. Trump & Son and later Trump Management, is a group of business entities founded by Fred Trump Sr. and his mother in 1927. All of Fred Sr.’s properties existed under the Trump Management umbrella, of which Fred Sr. appointed Donald president in 1971.

Trump Tower is a 58-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, New York City, that serves as a headquarters of the Trump Organization and where Donald has lived at various times in a penthouse condominium. Trump writes that it was opened to great fanfare in 1983, but the entire project “was steeped in controversy” (133). Donald promised historically significant artifacts from the façade of the Bonwit Teller building he razed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but instead had them destroyed.