WORLD NEWS | New York, Trump’s dream city, brings his comeuppance

NEW YORK, April 2 (AP) His name appeared in the city’s tabloids, pinned to buildings and cemented a peculiarly haughty New York confidence. Now, as Donald Trump returns to the place that made him famous, the city he loves is poised to meet his comeuppance.

Rejected by voters, ostracized by protesters and now rebuked by jurors, the people of New York have one more thing to put Trump’s name on: Indictment No. 71543-23.

Read also | Hot air balloon catches fire in mid-air over Mexico, killing two and injuring one (watch the video).

“He wanted to go to Manhattan. He loved Manhattan. He had a connection to Manhattan,” said Barbara Res, a longtime former employee of the president who was a Trump Organization vice president. “I don’t know if he took it, I don’t know if he believed it, but New York was against him.”

No Trump romance has lasted longer than his courtship of New York. Nowhere else can he match his blend of ostentation and eccentricity. His love for the city is Shakespearean, but Trump goes one step further, ascending to the presidency only to become the hometown antihero.

Read also | Tornadoes in US: At least 21 dead as storm sweeps Midwest and South (watch video).

Trump was born and raised in Queens, the son of a real estate developer whose projects were primarily in Queens and Brooklyn. But the young Trump was eager to cross the East River and make a name for himself in Manhattan.

He gained a foothold by transforming the dilapidated Commodore Hotel into the gleaming Grand Hyatt, and gained near-constant media coverage by appearing alongside politicians and celebrities, appearing at Studio 54 and other hotspots. Make sure you are the center of attention.

By the time greed was good in the ’80s, he was a regular in New York. In a city that bills itself as the center of the world, Trump sees himself as king.

“Trump grew up resenting those he thought were more famous, richer or more popular,” said David Greenberg, a professor at Rutgers University. “Success in Manhattan — build Trump Tower and becoming a fixture of the Manhattan social scene in the ’80s—it meant a lot to him.”

The feeling is never really mutual, though. Trump left behind a litany of unpaid bills, abandoned workers and ordinary New Yorkers who saw through his shameless self-promotion.

He may be a unique character, but in a city of 8 million stories, he’s just another character.

So Trump’s life here continues over the years as the city soars around him. Marriages come and go. Skyscrapers rose from the ground. File for bankruptcy. Trump flickers in and out of the upper echelons of fame.

He may never have been your average New Yorker, hustling the subway on his morning commute or grabbing a hot dog from a street vendor, but to many he was still a modest, if oversized, presence.

As years of grotesque, racially incendiary lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace began to change, many in his hometown were shocked when he walked down the golden escalator at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, to announce his presidential bid. People spat sulfuric acid on him.

Rockefeller Center hosted the weekly “Saturday Night Live,” which made him a laughingstock, and at the Waldorf Astoria soiree, he elicited groans. Across vast swaths of the city, dislike of Trump has turned to hatred.

Even among Republicans, many see him as credible as a Gucci bag on Canal Street. Trump won the state’s Republican primary but was unable to convince Republican voters in Manhattan.

“He’s no longer just a charlatan on this TV show. People seeing this guy is actually going to steer this country and the world in the wrong direction,” said Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University .

On election night in 2016, tears were shed at the Javits Center, where Hillary Clinton’s victory party never took place, while Trump’s ardent supporters celebrated his surprise victory in town at the Hilton Ballroom And carnival. The accusations made by New Yorkers against their own son make no sense. His face was projected onto the surface of the Empire State Building as locals digested the fact that he would be president.

In the days that followed, a curious parade of politicians and celebrities journeyed to Trump Tower to meet the president-elect and, for weeks after, predictions about his presidency were rampant.

Among observers’ speculations is a commuter president who shuttles between New York and Washington. When news broke that his wife and young son would not be moving to the White House immediately, it led to the belief that Trump would never fully leave the city that made him.

But Trump was still Trump, and his presidency gave way to one controversy after another and breaking the rules, New York became the capital of resistance, sparking ongoing mass protests.

The city of his dreams is no longer a place he can call home.

“New York has gone to hell,” he said as Election Day 2020 approached.

When the votes were counted, Manhattan supported Joe Biden seven times more than Trump, and this time the Electoral College was not far behind. When Trump’s presidency ends and he leaves Washington in the wake of the violent insurrection he fomented, it’s clear that New York will become desolate.

Like hordes of New Yorkers before him, he retired to Florida.

When he’s back up north now, he spends most of his time at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The man who has long tried to sidestep the bridges and tunnels of the past is once again across the river from Manhattan.

On his first return to Manhattan since leaving office, the New York Post reported that only one person waited outside Trump Tower to take a look. Even the protesters didn’t bother to pay him any attention.

His rebuke comes from New Yorkers involved in the city’s right-of-way, jury duty, and if it fits the mold of previous grand juries, it brings together a cross-section of typical Manhattan from diverse neighborhoods, incomes, and backgrounds enough to warrant a cast of characters fit for television.

As news of Trump’s indictment broke, the story about his sour love affair with New York took on a sense of foreboding. Even the Post, the Rupert Murdoch media empire that helped Trump get to the White House, has ditched him. The newspaper that once documented Trump’s affairs with a headline that screamed “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had” next to Trump’s smirking face called him “unhinged” on its front page last week Branded “Bat Hit Crazy” in capital letters.

Trump used to brag that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and stay popular. Today, he can distribute fifties in New York and still not win over most of the locals.

He dismissed the grand jury’s actions as a “scam” and a “witch hunt” and denied he had done anything wrong. He said Democrats were lying and cheating to hurt his return to the White House campaign.

Outside the courthouse waiting for him, the scene was largely limited to throngs of media. Among the few New York regulars was Marni Halasa, a figure skater in a leopard-print bodysuit, cat ears and wads of counterfeit money strung together as a “hush money” scarf. Standing alone outside on Friday, she celebrated the indictment of one of her city’s most famous sons.

“The spirit of New Yorkers is here,” she said, “and I feel like I represent most of them.” (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)