Donald Trump would continue his father’s proud tradition of wanton vandalism when he demolished the Bonwit Teller Building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to clear the site for Trump Tower. After saying he’d try to preserve the building’s priceless Art Deco friezes so that they could be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Trump discovered that it would cost $32,000 to remove them intact. As a clever solution to his problem, he had his workmen smash them to bits.
