Brooklyn pol wants to erase Donald Trump’s name from NYC buildings

By Jake Samieske

Menchaca, courtesy of City Hall

Despite his re-election loss, former President Donald Trump’s name is still literally all over the place in New York, plastered on high rises and condos that dot the city.

That could change.

City Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who reps Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and portions of Borough Park, is seeking to remove the former president’s name from city properties, using a statue from the New York City Department of Buildings.

Ten facades are still currently emblazoned with Trump’s name, from the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the other across from the United Nations. It’s splattered across the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Columbus Circle, though condo there owners have petitioned to have the name changed.

In a proposal announced Tuesday, Menchaca, a mayoral candidate, outlined his intention to pursue the removal of Trump’s name from these properties through the enforcement of a NYC Department of Buildings statute that regulates signs contingent on their effect on “quality of life in a particular neighborhood.”

The proposal is part of a broader distancing from Trump by the city. Last month Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would be  canceling four contracts with the Trump Organization over the role the former president played in urging protesters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

While Menchaca’s proposal might appear largely symbolic, the councilman wrote in a release that “public safety is still jeopardized by the charged implications of the President’s name … You simply cannot have an insurrectionist and white supremacist sympathizer’s name prominently displayed in the greatest city in the world.”

If implemented, Menchaca’s plan would also provide budgetary relief to taxpayers who had contributed $150 million to security around Trump Tower since 2016.

Menchaca is not the first to push against Trump-branded buildings, nor is he alone now. In 2018, residents of the condominiums at 200 Riverside Boulevard in Manhattan successfully agitated for the removal of “Trump Place” from their building after years of organizing. In Central Park, Trump’s name no longer graces the Wollman Rink or the Carousel. Now, along with Menchaca, a group of owners at Trump Palace on the Upper East side are attempting to accomplish the same.