President Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing is deeply unpopular with many Americans— but it isn’t the first time the former real estate mogul has bulldozed a historic site to make way for new construction.
The president’s decision to knock down the storied East Wing to build a massive, $250 million ballroom comes decades after he made an enemy out of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art during one of his earliest developments.
In 1979, Trump received approval from the city to purchase the Bonwit Teller building, an Art Deco mainstay on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which would eventually be demolished for a 68-story, mixed-use property now known as Trump Tower, Forbes reported.
Trump recalled that the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked him to donate several friezes from the 1929 building before it was razed, in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.”
The real estate developer agreed that he would save two, 15-foot Art Deco sculptures of nearly nude goddesses, as well as a 15- foot by 25-foot, nickel-plated grille, from the condemned building’s facade.
“I said that if the friezes could be saved, I’d be happy to donate them to the museum,” Trump wrote.
However, a year later, the “sculptures were smashed by jackhammers” and the grillwork went missing, Preservation News, a publication of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, reported in 1980.
Trump claimed at the time that he had the friezes torn down after he was told their heavy weight would require “special scaffolding for safety’s sake,” thus delaying his project by several weeks.
“I just wasn’t prepared to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to save a few Art Deco sculptures that I believed were worth considerably less, and perhaps not very much at all,” Trump later wrote in “The Art of the Deal.”
At the time, the decision drew the ire of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the board of trustees then telling the New York Times: “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?”
Today’s estimated value of the Bonwit Teller sculptures and grille that Trump destroyed is $845,00, according to Forbes.
The Bonwit Teller department store worked with world-famous artists, including Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí, who regularly decorated the windows, and Andy Warhol, before his career took off, according to ArtNet.
The architect who designed Trump Tower, Der Scutt, had hoped to incorporate the Art Deco designs into the new lobby, but Trump overruled him, according to Preservation News.
Snubbing the Met did serious damage to Trump’s reputation in New York intellectual circles, according to the outlet. He expressed regret over his decision to destroy the artworks, years later.
“Looking back, I regret that I had the sculptures destroyed,” Trump wrote in “The Art of the Deal.”
He continued: “I’m not convinced they were truly valuable, and I still think that a lot of my critics were phonies and hypocrites, but I understand now that certain events can take on a symbolic importance. Frankly, I was too young, and perhaps in too much of a hurry, to take that into account.”
A New York Times article in 1980, about the incident, quoted Trump. “There is nothing I would like to do more than give something to a museum… I’ve always been interested in art,” he told the paper at the time.
The Times noted that Trump had no artwork in his Manhattan office, apart from illustration of Trump Tower, hanging on one of the walls.
“If that isn’t art, then I don’t know what is,” Trump said at the time.
Construction on the 90,000 sq ft White House ballroom began earlier this week with significant demolition and heavy machinery pictured at the East Wing.
Trump had previously said that the new ballroom would be connected to the main White House residence through what he described as a “knockout panel” in the East Room.
But on Wednesday, he had an update. “In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure,” the president said.
The entire East Wing was set to be demolished “within days,” Trump administration officials also told NBC News.
The 90,000 square-foot ballroom will cost an estimated $300 million - $100 million more than Trump initially said.
“Nobody’s actually seen anything quite like it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that works to save historic landmarks, has requested the Trump administration “pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review process.”
While new construction of federal buildings must be vetted by the National Capital Planning Commission board, the Trump-appointed head of that panel said in September that the demolition work falls outside the board’s jurisdiction and can proceed without the need for approval.
The ballroom plans haven’t landed well with many Americans, according to recent polling. A YouGov poll conducted Tuesday revealed that 53 percent disapproved of demolishing part of the East Wing for the renovation.
Furious Trump terminates Canada trade talks over ‘fraudulent’ Reagan quote: Live
Inflation jumps 3 percent in September as Trump defends his tariff war with Canada
Kid Rock is already making a play to be the first to perform in Trump’s ballroom
Amazon, Apple and Google are helping pay for Trump’s ballroom as donor list revealed
Trump’s toughest sanctions yet on Russia may test India’s ties with Moscow
Jackie Kennedy’s grandson slams Trump for ‘pouring concrete’ all over her garden
