January 8, 2018--666 Fifth

How did I miss this one?

Not able to stop myself from thinking about Trump, his family of co-conspirators, and Robert Mueller, it slipped right by me that son-in-law Jared Kushner is involved in a mega-real estate deal at Fifth Avenue and 52 Street in New York City. A building, in a small way, I helped construct back in the late 50s when I was a sheetmetal worker.

Sheetmetal workers were responsible for installing the heating and air-conditioning systems, the HVAC, mainly through a complex network of ducts mainly fabricated off site from sheetmetal and suspended from the ceilings and through risers that paralleled the elevator shafts. 

I was not that skilled a mechanic and so I spend little time on the installation and more on the bull gang, unloading trucks that brought the factory-built ducts to the site and then getting them to the floors where they were needed by using the outside hoist, or work elevator, affixed to the exterior of the rising building.

I made a lot of money doing this--enough to help pay for college--and through the manual work got myself into the best physical shape of my life. I also made longterm friends and witnessed some horrific events--including a number of fellow workers injured and killed in construction accidents. One of which decapitated Joe Murey who was a member of my work gang. Still, as I look back on my work life it was the best job I ever had.

One bonus was hanging out on the 52nd Street side of the building site during lunch hour where we woofed down huge hero sandwiches and knocked down a few quick cans of beer. The job was adjacent to the 21 Club (Donald Trump's favorite New York place for dinner) and one treat was to see who showed up each day for lunch. My favorite sighting was Mike Todd and his then wife, Elizabeth Taylor. In true construction-worker form we whistled at her and not only did she turn our way to flash us a glamorous smile but walked over to shake our work-soiled hands. 

So how did I miss knowing that the Kushner family, led by Jared, back in 2007 bought the building for $1.8 billion and that they have been struggling ever since to carry out an ambitious $7.5 billion project that includes tearing it down (it's 41 stories tall) and building a new place of twice that height that would include a hotel, luxury apartments, and high-end retail shops. Very Trumpian. 

They have not been able to secure financing and have thus had difficultly meeting debt payments. It seems possible that the Kushners could lose up to a billion on this fiasco.

But here's where it gets more interesting--

To secure financing for additional debt and to carry out the ultimate plan, Jared Kushner has apparently sought the help of business interests in China, Qatar, and Russia. Including likely borrowing laundered Russian money through Deutsche Bank.

No wonder the Kushner and Trumps are in a panic and running scared.

In the meantime, there is my little Tishman Building Zelig experience.

One more thing--unnoticed by me at the time and I assume by the Kushners is the building's street address--666 Fifth Avenue.

The number 666 itself has quite a curious history.

Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelations reads--

Let one with understanding reckon the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of the man. His number is 666.

The "beast" is the antichrist who rises from the sea which represents the nations of the world and thus 666 is the number associated with the antichrist. 

The conjunction between Kushner and Trump and the antichrist, ironically, requires little elaboration. 

January 20, 2017--Trump's Second Thoughts

Trying to get with the program, last night I forced myself to watch some of the concert at the Lincoln Memorial that honored Donald J. Trump's ascendancy to the presidency--the Make America Great Again Welcome! concert.

Reading the expressions on the Trumps' faces--especially wife Melanie, daughter Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared--it felt as if they were already miserable to no longer be in New York City. I could imagine Ivanka thinking, "What did I get myself into. Political Purgatory. No 21 Club, no Cafe Carlyle, no friends to hang out with. I can already feel myself getting bored with Washington and I've been here for only three hours! For the next four years it's going to be schmoozing with Mitch McConnell and having to smile when listening to the Marine Band playing nothing but John Philip Sousa marches. If I have to listen to endless versions of God Bless America and that grizzled Lee Greenwood singing that awful God Bless the U.S.A., with my father pretending to mouth the words, I think I'll puke."

I could see poor Jared thinking, "No Bon Jovi, No Beyonce, no Bono, and of course the Boss stayed home. All boycotting. To tell you the truth, I too should have faked a headache and stayed with the kids in Blair House and watched reruns of Shark Tank. And then tomorrow, help me, I have to get through the Inauguration itself. I just hope my father-in-law didn't ask Jon Voight to serve again as MC for that. Unless Clint Eastwood shows up. At least Jon Voight didn't talk to a chair. If this is what's going to serve as entertainment for the next four years--and now he's already talking about 2020--with my Second Amendment rights protected, I'll have to shoot myself. Toby Keith?  I went to Harvard for God's sake."

By then I was switching between Shark Tank and the Australian Open so I spared forcing myself to feel empathetic to Melania, who at least has a great pre-nup and is going right back to NYC after she can get out of her 4-inch heels. She plans to live there. She says only until the kid finishes the school term. But I'm taking bets that this weekend is the last one she'll be spending in DC. Good for her. When I spotted her later last night at an event where Trump gave a version of his stand-up schtick to a group of donors who are now in love with him, Melania was huddled with 150-year-old gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a New York pal. For her at least, I felt good. Smart girl. She'll be back at Mortimer's by Saturday and have the Trump triplex to herself. Best of all, she won't have to listen to Donald talking back to his Twitter feed at 5 o'clock in the morning.