Saving Wollman Rink made Trump a New York City hero
[nypost.com]
So typical, government can't get it done, Trump takes over, gets it done ahead of schedule and under budget!
Having fallen into utter disrepair during the New York City fiscal crisis, unable to make ice, the city’s Parks Department embarked on a total refurbishment of the facility in 1980, estimating it would take two years to complete. After six years and having flushed $13 million down the drain, the city announced they would have to start all over again and it would another two years to complete. Wollman Rink had quite visibly failed. The Wollman Rink fiasco amplified the public perception of the general incompetence of government and their inability to complete even the simplest projects.
He's a New York City hero?
Really? To every single New Yorker? Even the ones who marched for 'Keep Families Together'?
Those are the NY Posts words - not mine
Who cares? Doesn't make up for the shit the Nazi is doing now. BTW how many tradespeople didn't get paid? He's a crook.
The Wollman Rink, opened in 1949, was a beloved Manhattan postcard icon. It appeared in countless movies, including “Love Story.” But it was falling apart, and then-Mayor Ed Koch closed it in 1980.
The city promised to reopen it by 1985. But Koch’s incompetent commissioners and contractors let the job run $12 million over its original $4.7 million budget, and by 1986, the finish line was nowhere in sight.
Enter Trump. The young Trump Tower developer was known more for self-promotion and for an ugly, name-calling feud with Koch over tax abatements and zoning rules.
In June 1986, Trump brashly offered to reopen the rink before Christmas. “If Koch doesn’t like this offer,” Trump said, “then let him have the same people who have built it for the last six years do it for the next six years"
Koch held his nose and gave Trump the keys. Trump got the ice rink reopened to the public on Nov. 1. It showed how private enterprise could handily whip government bureaucracy.
Private enterprise always beats government bureaucracy. It called capitalism and it’s a damn sight better than socialism.