From Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the Trump Building on Wall Street, the Trump World Tower by the United Nations to the Trump International overlooking Central Park, Donald Trump has stamped his name in golden letters on skyscrapers across New York City.
This real estate empire was the springboard for Trump’s ascent from tabloid fodder to reality TV stardom, and ultimately the presidency, all built on his self-projected image as America’s most famous businessman.
While the reality of Trump’s business acumen – and the true extent of his wealth – have long been questioned, on Friday a New York judge forever tarnished his gilded image, finding Trump and his allies guilty of frauds that “shock the conscience” and a “lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological”.
Trump was ordered to pay $354.9m and was banned from leading a New York business for three years after a court found that he and his associates fraudulently overstated his net worth. The Trump Organization was wrenched from his family’s control – and its future looks far from certain.
For decades, the former president has portrayed himself as a brash, bronzed, brilliant businessman who ruled the Manhattan skyline. Whether lecturing Apprentice contestants, charming voters, or bragging to fellow world leaders, he could point to more than a dozen Trump-branded towers as evidence of all he had achieved.
Trump is “the archetypal businessman – a dealmaker without peer”, with a name “synonymous with the most prestigious of addresses”, according to his own company: the “very definition of the American success story”.
But Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling is a shocking blow to this image. The same buildings which once embodied the former president’s fame and fortune will, for years, remain supervised by court-appointed monitors. For now, Trump has lost control of the corporation which once provided a stage for his persona.