Looking for article about Trump in New York City.

April 3, 2023 8:35 AM

This is driving me crazy, I can't find it. It was a longform article about Trump and all of his dealings in NYC, a very complete and detailed history, so that I got an excellent idea of why he is hated there. (More deets inside)

It may have begun with his father's history too. I remember towards the end something like "...and then [other NYC developers and government officials] finally had enough of him, and moved to ...?

I totally can't remember what year, though it was probably after he decided to run for president the first time. I feel like it was either The Atlantic or GQ or New York Magazine or ...? I feel like I found it through a link on Metafilter, perhaps. That is all. Googling Trump NYC does not help. Thank you!!

posted by Melismata to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

This is purely a gut-level hunch: Try doing a search through the archive of Spy Magazine. Spy was a news satire magazine (think like The Onion, but EVEN BETTER), and had a bit of a New York City focus; so they were already targeting Trump in the late 1980s. In an issue from 1986 they tossed off a comment about Trump being a "short-fingered vulgarian", and Tump had a SERIOUS hissy fit about that - like, he was sending ripped-out photos of himself with the hands circled to them for YEARS after with Post-its attached saying "see, not so short!" - so of course the guys from Spy decided to double down and do even more Trump coverage. The magazine folded in 1998 and Trump was STILL criticizing them in 2015.

I would not be surprised at all if the team at Spy did an article like that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

'How Trump forced his way from Avenue Z to Manhattan,' Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice, 1979 (and republished in 2015/6 or so)?

What's he really worth?, Tim O'Brien in the NYT in 2005?

'21 Questions for Donald Trump,' David Cay Johnston in 2015?

''No Vacancies' for Blacks,' NYT 2016?

'The Myth and the Reality of Trump's Business Empire,' WaPo 2016?

Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes, NYT in 2018?

(It's probably not Caity Weaver's 'Yunited States of Yuge,' but in the interest of completion...)
posted by box at 8:57 AM on April 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

(You could also look in The Atlantic, New York, and The New Yorker's archives (Longform and Longreads too), though that might be kind of exhausting.)
posted by box at 8:59 AM on April 3, 2023

I would not be surprised at all if the team at Spy did an article like that.

Maybe the SPY piece is a story I recall as being headlined "World's Cheapest Billionaires." I can't find the actual article but in this Tweet founder, SPY founder Kurt Anderson lays it out, short and sweet.

I don't know if they did a longer-form butt-kicking of Trump; I do recall seeing one in the New Yorker, maybe by George Packer. I know that during the early stage of the first campaign, USA Today did a piece on how Trump and his companies had been sued by literally 3,500 or so contractors for failing to pay them for the work they did on his buildings. Surely this, I thought at the time.
posted by martin q blank at 11:24 AM on April 3, 2023

Adam Davidson had done several long articles in the New Yorker as well.
posted by suelac at 12:28 PM on April 3, 2023