I watched "Funny or Die Presents Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie" early this morning. Please...you MUST watch this…soon.
From
today’s New York Times:
The humor website Funny or Die on Wednesday began streaming a 50-minute comedy that finds Mr. Depp
portraying the businessman turned politician, full-blown comb-over and all.
Kept a secret for months — no small task in Hollywood — “Funny or Die Presents
Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal: The Movie” was released to coincide with
Mr. Trump’s victory on Tuesday in the New Hampshire Republican presidential
primary.
Here
is the link
**
Now,
I’d like to tell you a personal Trump story that I have only shared with a handful
of people over the years:
In
the early 1980’s the State of New York initiated a continuing education rule for all those holding
real estate licenses. There were a few
folks ‘grandfathered in’ who did not have to go back to school. These included NYC real estate legends such
as Harry Helmsley who, with his partners, owned the Empire State Building.
I
enrolled to take the class at New York University’s midtown facility. About 20 of us got to the classroom on the
first evening and who walks in – Donald Trump.
He goes to the podium at the front of the room and says, “Good evening. I’m Donald Trump. I made a deal with the State of New
York. If I agreed to teach a class I
wouldn’t have to attend a continuing education class myself (Note: this was
several years before he wrote “The Art of the Deal.”) He continues, “I’d like to introduce you to
Joe (I can’t remember his actual name).
Joe was my project manager on the construction of Trump Plaza (a high-rise
residential condo). He’s going to tell
you about that project.” And with that,
Trump left the room.
And, each of the following weeks he did the same exact thing – introducing someone else who would
talk with us about something to do with real estate – and then left the room!
Flash
forward. It’s now the early 1990’s and
my wife and I went downtown to the Tribeca area of Manhattan as I wanted to visit
some of the tenants in 99 Hudson Street, a building on which I served as
‘Owners Rep’ (basically a NYC real estate term) for the conversion from a
printer’s building to a beautiful Class-B office building. 99 Hudson was branded the Legal Defense and
Education Fund building by virtue of having tenants such as NAACP Legal Defense
and Education Fund and others of the same ilk.
A side note here: the partners who owned 99 Hudson Street, Mort Olshan (Olshan Properties) for
whom I directly worked, Marshall Rose (Georgetown Associates) and Fred Gould
(Gould Investors Trust) wanted to ‘give back’ so we made very attractive
rental deals with these not-for-profit constitutional law organizations and also gave them an option to buy their
space at, I believe $50 per square foot (this was in 1983). It was a wonderful
learning experience for me.
Anyway,
after visiting the building we went next door to Nobu, the well-known Japanese
restaurant. Without a reservation, we took a chance and, sure enough, they were able to seat at us a nice
corner table for two. About 10 minutes
later, Donald Trump and his then girlfriend (now wife) Melania were seated at the right table
next to us.
Even though I had had the real
estate class experience with him and also another real estate related
interaction (a story for another day) I didn’t feel the need to start a
conversation with him. However, when our
server delivered our first order of sashimi, Donald said to us, “How can you eat raw
fish?” And I said to him, “How can you not?”
After
he opened up the conversation window I said, ‘I don’t expect you to remember
but you and I have some history.” He looked at me quizzically but with a 'come on, tell me' look and I related the
story of his ‘deal’ with the NYC Real Estate Licensing Commission. As I’m telling it, he turns to his girlfriend
multiple times, with a big grin on his face and making hand gestures, “Yes, I
did that. Wasn’t that smart of me? What a great deal.” He was extremely proud of himself and said
that he had almost forgotten about that.
They got up to leave and Donald said, “You two make a beautiful couple.”
I said, ‘Thank you, so do you.” And he, smiling says, “Thanks, but don’t you
think she’s a little young for me?”
So,
as I watched ‘The Art of the Deal: The Movie’ early this morning - with great
enjoyment and a lot of laughing to myself - I was reminded of that experience
and just had to share it with you.
I
hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did.
