Planning

The Trump Organization closed Bonwit Teller's flagship store in May 1979,[20] and
the store was demolished by 1980.[4] Trump hired Der Scutt, the architect of Trump
Tower, in July 1978, a year before the Bonwit Teller site was purchased. Scutt had
collaborated with Trump before to develop Grand Hyatt New York and several other
projects. The architect initially proposed a design similar to Boston's John
Hancock Tower, but Trump objected strongly.[21] He preferred a building that was
both very tall and expensive, with a design that critics and potential tenants
would approve of. The real-estate mogul later stated that "the marble in Trump
Tower would cost more than the entire rent from one of my buildings in
Brooklyn."[22]

Two major factors affected Trump Tower's construction. One was the decision to
build it around a concrete frame, in contrast to many other skyscrapers, which were
built on steel frames. Scutt said that a concrete frame was easier to build and was
more rigid than a steel frame was.[23] The other was the decision to design Trump
Tower as a mixed-use building with retail, office, and residential units.[14]
Originally, Trump only wanted to build an office building on the site, but the plot
was located in a special zoning district, which specified height limits for most
office towers in the area. However, mixed-use towers with public space were exempt
from the height limit.[14][22] The Trump Organization built a five-story, 15,000-
square-foot (1,400 m2) atrium, which was legally designated a "public space"
according to city code, in exchange for permission to add 20 stories to the planned
tower.[15] The Trump Organization also constructed terraces on the building's
setbacks,[14] as well as a pedestrian arcade at ground level through the middle of
the block, which connected to IBM's 590 Madison Avenue tower to the east.[14][15]
At the time, the building was the only skyscraper on Fifth Avenue with its own
retail space.[14]

As originally planned, the tower was to have 60 stories consisting of 13 office

floors, 40 condominium floors, and two floors for mechanical uses, but this was
later amended.[14] The base was to be made of limestone, while the building's
elevators were to be in a separate glass structure outside the main tower.[24] In
the final plan, the building was to contain 58 stories.[2][25] The lowest six
floors would be occupied by the atrium, followed by 13 office floors above it, and
39 condominium floors above the office floors.[26][27]

While creating the final design for Trump Tower, Scutt studied the designs of other
skyscrapers, almost all having a similar architectural form. To make Trump Tower
stand out from the "boxy" International Style buildings being erected at the time,
Scutt designed the tower as a 28-faced edifice with an "inverted pyramid of cubes"
at the base.[28] This design received mixed reviews from critics: although it was
widely praised as creative, many reviewers also believed the tower could be covered
in masonry to blend in with neighboring buildings, or that its height should be
reduced for the same reason.[29] The city ultimately accepted this design.[25]

Construction
HRH Construction was hired as the contractor on Trump Tower.[30] The company would
go on to build many of Trump's other real-estate developments.[31] HRH hired
several dozen subcontractors to work on different aspects of the building.[32]
Barbara Res, who had worked on some of Trump's other projects,[33] was hired as the
construction executive in October 1980.[34][35] She had previously worked for HRH
Construction during the building of the Citigroup Center and the Grand Hyatt.[36]
Res was the first woman assigned to oversee a major New York City construction
site.[33][35] She was often ignored by subcontractors and suppliers who were new to
the project, as they thought the person in charge of construction was a man.[34]

The head superintendent of the project was Anthony "Tony Raf" Rafaniello,[37] who
worked for HRH Construction.[38] He was in charge of coordinating construction
based on the site's blueprints.[38] Rafaniello was supported by five assistant
superintendents, including Jeff Doynow, who was one of the first "concrete
supervisors" to be hired for the construction of a skyscraper.[39] After Rafaniello
was hired for the Trump Tower project in September 1980, he spent a week planning a
three-phase construction schedule.[32] Once the subcontractors were hired,
Rafaniello made sure they met once a week ensure they were working on the same
phase.[40]

Trump Tower's proposed mixed-use status posed obstacles during construction since
there were different regulations for residential, commercial, and retail spaces.
[41] Several prospective commercial and residential tenants requested custom-made
features, including the installation of a swimming pool for one unit, and the
removal of a wall with utilities inside it for another.[41] Trump's then-wife,
Ivana Trump, was involved in selecting some of the tower's minor details.[32]
Donald Trump and Res agreed to fulfill many of these requests, but they did not
always agree on matters of design. In one case, Trump so hated the marble slabs at
some of the tower's corners that he demanded they be removed completely, even at
great cost; he eventually decided that bronze panels should be placed over the
marble, but Res later said she refused to buy them.[42]

Trump Tower was also the first skyscraper with a concrete frame,[41] and so the
contractors had to complete a floor before they started erecting the floor above
it. Concrete was more expensive in New York City than anywhere else in the United
States, which raised the construction costs.[43] All of the floors above the 20th
used a roughly similar design, and each of these floors could be completed within
two days. However, the floors below the 20th floor were all different, so each took
several weeks to erect.[44] Trump Tower was topped out by July 1982, two-and-a-half
years after the start of construction.[45]

Originally, it was estimated the tower would cost $100 million to build.[14] The
total cost ended up being approximately twice that; this included $125 million in
actual construction costs and $75 million for other expenditures such as insurance.
[46]

Incidents
Trump Tower had a low number of worker fatalities during construction. One worker
died during the tower's excavation after a neighboring sidewalk collapsed.[47]
Another incident occurred when the tower's 25th through 27th floors accidentally
caught fire, slightly damaging a construction crane. Firefighters had to rescue the
crane's operator.[48][49] The fire delayed construction for two months.[49]

In May 1983, a glass windowpane fell from a crane installing windows on the tower,
hitting two pedestrians.[50] One of them later died from a skull fracture.[51]

Controversies

View of the atrium from its base

Destruction of Bonwit Teller Building features
The art dealer Robert Miller owned a gallery across Fifth Avenue from the Bonwit
Teller Building.[52] When Miller heard the building was to be demolished, he
contacted Penelope Hunter-Stiebel, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In
December 1979, Stiebel and Trump agreed that the Art Deco limestone bas-relief
sculptures of semi-nude goddesses on the Bonwit Teller Building's facade, as well
as the massive ornate 15 by 25 feet (4.6 by 7.6 m) grille above the store's
entrance, would be removed and donated to the Metropolitan Museum.[4][53][54]
Miller had appraised the sculptures at between $200,000 and $250,000.[53][52] In
February 1980, Trump wrote a letter to an official at the museum, in which he
stated, "Our contractor plans to begin demolition on the exterior of the building
in approximately three to four weeks. He has been instructed to save these
artifacts and take all necessary measures to preserve them."[52] Every week, the
Trump Organization and Stiebel would meet to discuss the transport of the
sculptures. However, Stiebel later said the Trump Organization never seemed to be
able to agree on a specific date for their transport, and the organization had
repeatedly dismissed her concerns about not having received the letter.[55]

On April 16, 1980, the grille and sculptures were removed from the building. They
were set to be transported to a junkyard and destroyed because, according to Trump,
there were general hazard concerns, expense, and a possible 10-day construction
delay due to the difficulty of removing them.[4][53] Stiebel rode by taxicab to the
building site and attempted to pay the workmen for the sculptures, but she was
rebuffed.[56] The workers in charge of demolition told her that she could make an
appointment to go see the sculptures, but they then canceled several appointments
that Stiebel made.[55] The workers later told her that the building's decorative
grille had been transported to a New Jersey warehouse,[55][53] but it was never
recovered, and on May 28, Stiebel was informed the grille had been "lost".[57][53]
On June 5, the sculptures were destroyed.[58][57] Stiebel had received notice of
the sculptures' pending demolition, but by the time she reached the Trump Tower
site, the workmen told her that they had been ordered to "destroy it all."[57]
Trump later acknowledged he had personally ordered the destruction of the
sculptures and grille.[54] Trump said that these "so-called Art Deco sculptures,
which were garbage by the way," had been informally appraised by three different
individuals as "not valuable," and they had pegged the sculptures' value at $4,000
to $5,000. He also told the media that carefully removing the sculptures would have
cost him an extra $500,000 and would have delayed his project.[59] In a New York
Magazine article in November 1980, Trump said that the decor of his Grand Hyatt New
York included "real art, not like the junk I destroyed at Bonwit Teller."[60]

The New York Times condemned Trump's actions as "esthetic vandalism,"[61] and a
spokesman for Mayor Ed Koch said Trump had failed his "moral responsibility to
consider the interests of the people of the city."[54] Scutt was outraged by the
destruction, having initially hoped to incorporate the goddess sculptures into the
new building's lobby design; Trump had rejected the plan, preferring something
"more contemporary."[53] Miller lamented that such things would "never be made
again," and Peter M. Warner, a researcher who worked across the street, called the
destruction "regrettable."[62] However, Trump later said he used the notoriety of
that act to advertise more residential units in the tower.[60][59]

Unpaid laborers
In 1983, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Trump Organization concerning
unpaid pension and medical obligations to labor unions that helped build the
towers.[63] Trump had paid $774,000 to a window-cleaning company that employed
undocumented Polish immigrants during the renovation of an adjoining building.[64]
According to the laborers, they were paid $4 an hour for 12-hour shifts, and were
not told about asbestos in the under-construction structure.[64]

Trump testified in 1990 he was unaware that 200 undocumented Polish immigrants,
some of whom lived at the site during a 1980 transit strike, and worked round-the-
clock shifts, were involved in the destruction of the Bonwit Teller building and
the Trump Tower project.[65] Trump said he rarely visited the demolition site[65]
and never noticed the laborers, who were visually distinct for their lack of hard
hats.[66] A labor consultant and FBI informant testified that Trump was aware of
the illegal workers' status.[65] Trump testified that he and an executive used the
pseudonym "John Baron" in some of his business dealings,[65] although Trump said he
did not do so until years after Trump Tower was constructed.[66] A labor lawyer
testified that he was threatened over the phone with a $100 million lawsuit by a
John Baron who supposedly worked for the Trump Organization. Donald Trump later
told a reporter, "Lots of people use pen names. Ernest Hemingway used one."[66]
After the laborers filed for a mechanic's lien over unpaid wages, they said a Trump
Organization lawyer threatened to have the Immigration and Naturalization Service
deport them.[64] A judge ruled in favor of the Polish laborers in 1991, saying that
the organ