The Republican president-elect’s base, a hitherto unremarkable building in midtown Manhattan, is now subject to tight security and a no-fly zone

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Perhaps no other building has shot from irrelevance to epicenter as quickly as Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan.

Following Donald J Trump’s shock of a winning campaign, the home of the president-elect has drawn to its doorstep the full presidential protection apparatus, as well as both sides of a deeply divided nation.

“He’s a male chauvinist, a fucking rapist!” yelled a woman, streaming the experience to the world on her phone. “Fuck Trump!”

Donald Trump's shock victory sparks protests across America Read more

“’Scuse me! There are kids here,” another woman yelled, looking harried as she pushed through the crowd with a stroller, a tiny hand grasping hers.

A circus of protesters, supporters, tourists, gawkers and New Yorkers just trying to get where they were going formed in front of Trump’s home by the end of the week. Pedestrian traffic rivaled Times Square, as police arbitrarily cordoned off corners. Press were kept in a pen.

A uniformed cop adjusting barricades remarked: “This building was never important until just a couple days ago.”

The gray-glassed skyscraper on 56th Street and 5th Avenue was, on Monday, just a tower of steel built atop Gucci and Tiffany & Company stores. By Wednesday, it became the site of protests and pleas, rancor and adulation. The stink of a bitter campaign lingered over the building.

“Trump eat shit!” yelled one passerby. Another yelled back, “What about Bill Clinton?” his phone raised above the crowd.

A man with a sign scribbled on a spiral-bound notebook yelled, “Antisemitism is not OK!” The man, from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said he came to protest about “the way Jewish journalists were attacked”, during the campaign. He asked to be identified by James G, because he feared retaliation. “I guess I just feel vulnerable right now,” James said. “This is the first time I’ve ever protested anything.”



Others approached him and wondered aloud whether Trump would, “quote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, a fraudulent early 20th-century document used to justify antisemitism.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hundreds protest near Trump Tower in Manhattan. Photograph: Nathanael/Rex/Shutterstock

Added security in front of the building made it look more like a fortress than the monument to luxury it was presumably meant to embody. The Federal Aviation Administration instituted a no-fly zone in the area. Residents of the buildings, at Trump Tower and along the street, were required to show ID to get past barriers, New York police officers and the US Secret Service.

New York area newspapers have reported that residents are considering moving from the tower.

“These are wealthy people. They don’t need this, and they can’t take it any longer,” an unnamed real estate broker told the New York Post. “They no longer want to stay there. Some of them are already planning on moving out, and they’ll decide later whether or not they want to sell.”

Deliveries of soda, dry cleaning, stationery and catering were all eyeballed for authenticity before guards let them behind blockades.

One man, looking to volunteer for Trump, was leaving the tower after he found the volunteer office closed.

“He’s powerful, he’s intelligent, he loves women, and look at this phenomenal building,” said Alex Ionescu, a Manhattan real estate broker, before further extolling Trump’s virtuous stance on women.

Ionescu’s Texan companion, a man skeptical of the media, said Trump would improve the world by removing liberals’ “rose-colored glasses”. He refused to give his name.

Liberal policy, he said, was like “walking through Harlem in the middle of the night in a mini-skirt, and thinking you’re not going to have a problem.”