The Trump Files: The Time Donald Sued Someone Who Made Fun of Him for $500 Million
He wanted to build the world's tallest building. He didn't like the way people responded.
Max J. Rosenthal Jul. 21, 2016 6:00 AM
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.
Donald Trump being Donald Trump, he more than once aspired to build the world's tallest skyscraper. In 1984, it looked like he might get his chance.
That July, Trump told the media he was eyeing a soon-to-be-constructed section of landfill on the East River in Lower Manhattan as the site for a 150-story tower. "New York City deserves to have the tallest and greatest building in the world, and I would be very interested in doing it," he told the New York Times. Trump's proposed 1,940-foot combination office, apartment, and hotel building would smash the height record then held by the Sears Tower in Chicago by nearly 500 feet.
Reactions were skeptical. The Associated Press reported that Paul Goldstein, the manager of the community board for the area where the tower would stand, literally giggled as he considered the idea. "We've had some bizarre development proposals down here, but this takes the cake," he said. In Chicago, architecture critic Paul Gapp ridiculed Trump's plan in an article for the Chicago Tribune. "The world's tallest tower would be one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city," he said. Trump hadn't produced any drawings of the tower, so the story was accompanied by a conceptual sketch of the building as dreamed up by the Tribune, with Gapp explaining why the likely end product would be pointless and inefficient.
Trump decided the best course of action was to sue Gapp and the Tribune for libel—and $500 million in damages. He claimed Gapp's review had "virtually torpedoed" the project and subjected him "to public ridicule and contempt, all of which have caused him to suffer embarrassment and financial harm." The Tribune's drawing was deemed "an atrocious, ugly monstrosity" by Trump's lawyers.
The case was dismissed about a year later, but it cost the Tribune $60,000 in legal fees to get the angry billionaire off its back, according to the Washington Post. Read the rest of "The Trump Files":
Trump Files #1: The Time Andrew Dice Clay Thanked Donald for the Hookers Trump Files #2: When Donald Tried to Stop Charlie Sheen's Marriage to Brooke Mueller Trump Files #3: The Brief Life of the "Trump Chateau for the Indigent" Trump Files #4: Donald Thinks Asbestos Fears Are a Mob Conspiracy Trump Files #5: Donald's Nuclear Negotiating Fantasy Trump Files #6: Donald Wants a Powerball for Spies Trump Files #7: Donald Gets An Allowance Trump Files #8: The Time He Went Bananas on a Water Cooler Trump Files #9: The Great Geico Boycott Trump Files #10: Donald Trump, Tax-Hike Crusader Trump Files #11: Watch Donald Trump Say He Would Have Done Better as a Black Man Trump Files #12: Donald Can't Multiply 16 and 7 Trump Files #13: Watch Donald Sing the "Green Acres" Theme Song in Overalls Trump Files #14: The Time Donald Trump Pulled Over His Limo to Stop a Beating Trump Files #15: When Donald Wanted to Help the Clintons Buy Their House Trump Files #16: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word "Trump" Trump Files #17: He Dumped Wine on an "Unattractive Reporter" Trump Files #18: Behold the Hideous Statue He Wanted to Erect In Manhattan Trump Files #19: When Donald Was "Principal for a Day" and Confronted by a Fifth-Grader Trump Files #20: In 2012, Trump Begged GOP Presidential Candidates to Be Civil Trump Files #21: When Donald Couldn't Tell the Difference Between Gorbachev and an Impersonator Trump Files #22: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders "Like Hookers" Trump Files #23: Donald Tried to Shut Down a Bike Race Named "Rump" Trump Files #24: When Donald Called Out Pat Buchanan for Bigotry Trump Files #25: Donald's Most Ridiculous Appearance on Howard Stern's Show Trump Files #26: How Donald Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal Trump Files #27: Donald Told Congress the Reagan Tax Cuts Were Terrible Trump Files #28: When Donald Destroyed Historic Art to Build Trump Tower Trump Files #29: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue Trump Files #30: Donald's Near-Death Experience (That He Invented) Trump Files #31: When Donald Struck Oil on the Upper West Side Trump Files #32: When Donald Massacred Trees in the Trump Tower Lobby Trump Files #32: When Donald Demanded Other People Pay for His Overpriced Quarterback
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