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Donald Trump Cares About Irreplaceable Objects, Except When He Doesnt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-monument-beautiful-statue_us_5995a71ae4b06ef724d6ef65
For someone so concerned with “beautiful statues,” Trump seems to have forgotten his own track record with historic artifacts.
“The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed,” Trump said in response, “and never able to be comparably replaced!”
To build his skyscraper, Trump demolished the Bonwit Teller building, which was erected in 1929 and included a historically significant Art Deco relief. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was reportedly interested in preserving the artwork around the time of the building’s demolition, and, according to a 1980 report from the NYT, Trump originally agreed to donate them to the museum as long as the price wasn’t too high.
It turned out, however, the price was too high ($32,000). Instead of preserving and gifting the reliefs, Trump ordered demolition workers to jackhammer them and shatter the remains. Allegedly posing as his fake spokesperson John Baron, Trump described the relief to the NYT as being “without artistic merit,” adding “the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.”
Members of the art world, however, strongly disagreed, with gallery owner Robert Miller describing the loss as “tragic.” As Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the Board of Trustees at the Met put it, “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?”
Trump was once again accused of scrapping historical remains during the transformation of a landmark post office in Washington, D.C., into a “super luxury” Trump Hotel. Six blocks from the White House, the building is “considered an architectural masterpiece,” the NYT explained in 2016. “Built in the Romanesque Revival style, it dates to 1899; it is the tallest high-rise federal building in the city.”
For someone so concerned with “beautiful statues,” Trump seems to have forgotten his own track record with historic artifacts.
“The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed,” Trump said in response, “and never able to be comparably replaced!”
To build his skyscraper, Trump demolished the Bonwit Teller building, which was erected in 1929 and included a historically significant Art Deco relief. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was reportedly interested in preserving the artwork around the time of the building’s demolition, and, according to a 1980 report from the NYT, Trump originally agreed to donate them to the museum as long as the price wasn’t too high.
It turned out, however, the price was too high ($32,000). Instead of preserving and gifting the reliefs, Trump ordered demolition workers to jackhammer them and shatter the remains. Allegedly posing as his fake spokesperson John Baron, Trump described the relief to the NYT as being “without artistic merit,” adding “the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.”
Members of the art world, however, strongly disagreed, with gallery owner Robert Miller describing the loss as “tragic.” As Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the Board of Trustees at the Met put it, “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?”
Trump was once again accused of scrapping historical remains during the transformation of a landmark post office in Washington, D.C., into a “super luxury” Trump Hotel. Six blocks from the White House, the building is “considered an architectural masterpiece,” the NYT explained in 2016. “Built in the Romanesque Revival style, it dates to 1899; it is the tallest high-rise federal building in the city.”
Dude's architect resigned in protest over the destruction of historical elements instead of preservation.
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