An
American real estate developer, Donald Trump became one of the best known and
most controversial businessmen of the 1980s and 1990s.
Privileged childhood
Donald
John Trump was born in 1946 in Queens, New York City, the fourth of five
children of Frederick C. and Mary MacLeod Trump. Frederick Trump was a builder
and real estate developer who specialized in constructing and operating middle
income apartments in the Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn sections of New
York. Donald Trump was an energetic and bright child, and his parents sent him
to the New York Military Academy at age thirteen, hoping the discipline of the
school would channel his energy in a positive manner. Trump did well at the
academy, both socially and academically, rising to be a star athlete and
student leader by the time he graduated in 1964.
During
the summers, Trump worked for his father's company at the construction sites.
He entered Fordham University and then transferred to the
Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he
graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.
Trump
seems to have been strongly influenced by his father in his decision to make a
career in real estate development, but the younger man's personal goals were
much grander than those of his father. After graduating college, Trump joined
the family business, the Trump Organization. In 1971 Trump moved his residence
to Manhattan, where he became familiar with many influential people. Convinced
of the economic opportunity in the city, Trump became involved in large
building projects in Manhattan that would offer opportunities for earning high
profits, utilizing attractive architectural design, and winning public
recognition.
Building an empire
When the
Pennsylvania Central Railroad entered bankruptcy, Trump was able to obtain an
option (a contract that gives a person the authority to sell something for a
specific price during a limited time frame) on the railroad's yards on the west
side of Manhattan. When plans for apartments were refused because of a poor
economic climate, Trump promoted the property as the location of a city
convention center, and the city government selected it over two other sites in
1978. Trump's offer to drop a fee if the center were named after his family,
however, was turned down, along with his bid to build the complex.
In 1974
Trump obtained an option on one of the Penn Central's hotels, the Commodore,
which was unprofitable but in an excellent location near Grand Central Station.
The next year he signed a partnership agreement with the Hyatt
Hotel Corporation, which did not have a large downtown hotel. Trump then worked
out a complicated deal with the city to revamp the hotel. Renamed the Grand
Hyatt, the hotel was popular and an economic success, making Trump the city's
best known and most controversial developer.
In 1977
Trump married Ivana Zelnickova Winklmayr, a New York fashion model who had been
an alternate on the 1968 Czech Olympic Ski Team. After the birth of the first
of the couple's three children in 1978, Donald John Trump, Jr., Ivana Trump was
named vice president in charge of design in the Trump Organization and played a
major role in supervising the renovation of the Commodore.
In 1979
Trump rented a site on Fifth Avenue next to the famous Tiffany & Company as
the location for a monumental $200 million apartment-retail complex designed by
Der Scutt. It was named Trump Tower when it opened in 1982. The
fifty-eight-story building featured a six-story courtyard lined with pink
marble and included an eighty-foot waterfall. The luxurious building attracted
well-known retail stores and celebrity renters and brought Trump national
attention.
Atlantic City
Meanwhile
Trump was investigating the profitable casino gambling business, which was
approved in New Jersey in 1977. In 1980 he was able to acquire a piece of
property in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He brought in his younger brother Robert
to head up the complex project of acquiring the land, winning a gambling
license, and obtaining permits and financing. Holiday Inns Corporation, the
parent company of Harrah's casino hotels, offered a partnership, and the $250
million complex opened in 1982 as Harrah's at Trump Plaza. Trump bought out
Holiday Inns in 1986 and renamed the facility Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.
Trump also purchased a Hilton Hotels casino-hotel in Atlantic City when the
corporation failed to obtain a gambling license and renamed the $320 million
complex Trump's Castle. Later, while it was under construction, he was able to
acquire the largest hotel-casino in the world, the Taj
Mahal at Atlantic City, which opened in 1990.
Back in
New York City, Trump had purchased an apartment building and the Barbizon-Plaza
Hotel in New York City, which faced Central Park, with plans to build a large
condominium tower on the site. The tenants of the apartment building, however,
who were protected by the city's rent control and rent stabilization programs, fought Trump's plans
and won. Trump then renovated the Barbizon, renaming it Trump Parc. In 1985
Trump purchased seventy-six acres on the west side of Manhattan for $88 million
to build a complex to be called Television City, which was to consist of a
dozen skyscrapers, a mall, and a riverfront park. The huge development was to
stress television production and feature the world's tallest building, but
community opposition and a long city approval process delayed construction of
the project. In 1988 he acquired the Plaza Hotel for $407 million and spent $50
million renovating it under his wife Ivana's direction.
Declining wealth
It was in
1990, however, that the real estate market declined, reducing the value of and
income from Trump's empire; his own net worth plummeted from an estimated $1.7 billion
to $500 million. The Trump Organization required massive loans to keep it from
collapsing, a situation that raised questions as to whether the corporation
could survive bankruptcy. Some observers saw Trump's decline as symbolic of
many of the business, economic, and social excesses from the 1980s.
Yet Trump
climbed back and was reported to be worth close to $2 billion in 1997. Donald
Trump's image was tarnished by the publicity surrounding his controversial
separation and the later divorce from his wife, Ivana. But Trump married again,
this time to Marla Maples, a fledgling actress. The couple had a daughter two
months before their marriage in 1993. He filed for a highly publicized divorce
from Maples in 1997, which became final in June 1999.
On October
7, 1999, Trump announced the formation of an exploratory committee to inform
his decision of whether or not he should seek the Reform Party's nomination for
the presidential race of 2000, but backed out because of problems within the
party.
A state appeals
court ruled on August 3, 2000, that Trump had the right to finish an
856-foot-tall condominium on New York City's east side. The Coalition for
Responsible Development had sued the city, charging it with violation of zoning
laws by letting the building reach heights that towered over everything in the
neighborhood. The city has since moved to revise its rules to prevent more of
such projects. The failure of Trump's opponents to obtain an injunction (a
court order to stop) allowed him to continue construction.
Source:
http://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Trump-Donald.html