July 14, 2016

The Trump Files: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue

It was supposed to have a moat.

Ivylise Simones

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange but true stories, or curious scenes from the life of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

If Donald Trump had gotten his way in 1984, a New Yorker wouldn’t have had to travel to Atlantic City to visit the Trump Castle. The real estate mogul wanted to build a castle-like skyscraper right in Manhattan—complete with a moat and drawbridge.

The New York Times described the planned luxury condo building as “a 60-story castle, Trump Castle, six cylinders of varying heights with gold-leafed, coned and crenelated tops to be built at 60th Street and Madison Avenue.” A Miami Herald story from 1986 even claimed that the bridge was to be guarded, like an urban Riverrun. Architect Philip Johnson, who proposed the building’s moat and drawbridge, told the Times that the medieval defenses were “very Trumpish.” He added, “Trump is mad and wonderful.”

Sadly, the fortress on the Upper East Side was abandoned when Prudential, which owned the site, decided not to proceed with the project. “We didn’t want to do a deal that depended on selling apartments for $1.5 million each to break even,” a Prudential executive told the Los Angeles Times. And when the Trump’s Castle casino opened in Atlantic City in 1985, it was a boring old rectangle with not even a single coned top.

Read the rest of “The Trump Files”:

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate