Trump Makes One Believe for a Moment in the American Dream Again
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December 7, 1987
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TRUMP: The Art of the Deal. By Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz. Illustrated. 246 pages. Random House. $19.95. WHAT ''Trump: The Art of the Bargain'' is almost is how its author, the builder Donald J. Trump, is only smarter than the rest of us. He's smarter than Barron Hilton of Hilton Hotels and Stephen A. Wynn of the Gilded Nugget Hotel in Atlantic City and the people who run Vacation Inns and all the others he'south browbeaten in the diverse deals he's made.
He's smarter than Mayor Koch, of whom Mr. Trump writes: ''Koch has achieved something quite miraculous. He's presided over an administration that is both pervasively decadent and totally incompetent.'' He'due south smarter than the tenants of 100 Primal Park Due south, who, by beating Mr. Trump in his endeavour to have them evicted, forced him to make even more than money out of Trump Parc than he would have had he succeeded in his original plans.
Well, maybe ''smarter'' isn't quite the word. He writes: ''More than than annihilation else, I think deal-making is an ability you're born with. Information technology's in the genes. I don't say that egotistically. It's not about being vivid. It does take a sure intelligence, merely mostly it's nearly instincts.'' Whatever it is, Mr. Trump has what it takes, and he's the first to say so.
In brusque, ''Trump'' is a brandish of the author'due south not inconsiderable ego. And he's got a lot to be egotistical most, particularly in the elemental terms he keeps track of such things. He's makes more money: ''. . . much more than I'll ever demand,'' he writes. He builds higher buildings - the highest i in the globe, if he tin can ever become approval for his evolution on Manhattan's Upper W Side.
Almost impressively, he does these things with elegant simplicity. Mr. Trump's best-laid plans rarely gang agley, or and so it would seem from the way he describes them here. In the opening chapter, ''Dealing: A Week in the Life,'' he recounts a typical calendar week in his business routine. Monday consists of a dozen or then telephone conversations, two meetings, one deposition in a lawsuit and a request to his secretary for a can of tomato plant juice for lunch. Life at the top is uncluttered.
In later chapters, he describes his major deals - the West Side train yards he bought from Penn Central, the building of the One thousand Hyatt Hotel on East 42d Street, Trump Belfry, Trump Parc, his Atlantic Urban center backdrop, his involvement in the Usa Football game League and his rescue of the Wollman Rink in Central Park. Mr. Trump makes information technology all sound then unproblematic. Recollect large. Be persistent. Maximize your options. Accept fun. Oddly enough, Mr. Trump'south display of ego is not offensive to the reader. As ane reads along, 1 takes inventory of certain qualities i might dislike about him, or at least the version of these qualities that announced in this book. He's more interested in the rich element of Manhattan than he is in the poor. He prefers new money to old. He lacks refined sense of taste. He was unpleasant when immature - a cocky, ambitious cutup who had to be sent to military school to learn field of study.
However for none of these qualities can you lot really blame Mr. Trump. He is the first to phone call attention to them. He makes no pretense to the contrary. He is proud to be at play in the fields of American complimentary enterprise, looking for every loophole in the law and edge on his competitors he tin can perchance get.
True, his narrative falters at present and and then. He sounds disingenuous when he asserts that he never harassed the tenants of 100 Cardinal Park Southward, but just wanted to help the downtrodden when he threatened to move homeless people into the building'due south empty apartments. He sounds ungrateful to his father when, instead of thanking him for a solid plenty apprenticeship equally a builder to make the leap to Manhattan, he mildly denigrates him for operating in the outer boroughs.
He writes, ''I always have calls from my kids, no matter what I'm doing,'' as if this somehow fabricated him remarkable. In a similarly patronizing vein, he observes of a woman who works for him: ''I like to tell her that she must be a very tough adult female to live with. The truth is I get a great kick out of her.''
Yet such lapses are few and far between. The more of import fact is that he arouses ane's sense of wonder at the imagination and self-invention information technology must take taken to leap from his father's shoulders and reach for the deals that he did. Jay Gatsby lives, without romance and without the usual tragic flaws. The cloak-and-dagger really seems to be difficult work, thorough grooming, detailed knowledge, conscientious planning, tight organization, potent leadership, indomitable persistence, controlled energy, good instincts and the genetic ability to deal.
Mr. Trump makes i believe for a moment in the American dream again.
It's like a fairy tale.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/07/books/books-of-the-times-775087.html
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