A piece published Thursday in the New York Times explores Donald Trump’s penchant for writing letters to his friends and enemies alike.
Dispatched from the desk of Donald J. Trump on official stationary or in the form of marker scrawl on top of unflattering newspaper clippings, it seems no one is safe from Trump’s poison pen.
Once such instance was a 1985 letter Trump sent to Ed Koch, New York City’s mayor at the time, complaining about hot dog vendors clogging up his beloved Fifth Avenue.
As the location of Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue has a special place in the Donald’s tiny heart. If he’s a blustering, big-headed wizard projecting the illusion of power, Fifth Ave is his yellow brick road. In the letter, Trump takes exception to “one of the truly great streets of America” being “overrun by peddlars and food vendors.”
Proving that hyperbole has always been his modus operandi Trump also complains to Koch about “ketchup and mustard splattered” sidewalks, calling the state of affairs “disgraceful” and the vendors “filthy” and rather apocalyptically predicting that the existence of hot dog vendors slinging dirty weenies would drive away the fashion industry, saying, “As the filthy food carts come in, the Guccis, Jourdans, et cetera will leave, and with them both prestige and taxes will be lost to the City forever.”
He also complains about a “humongous” vegetable stand.
The letter simultaneously touches on Trump’s obsession with cleanliness (he’s a well-known germaphobe) and paradoxical relationship with food. The bumptious billionaire is known to shovel down steaks, burgers, and Haagen-Dazs but appears to have a love-hate relationship with junk food, lambasting prior rival John Kasich for his supposedly “disgusting” eating habits.
Underlying that disgust, however, is a rich weenie simply worrying about his property values.
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