The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire - Hardcover

Blair, Gwenda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684808498 ISBN 13: 9780684808499

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2000

Synopsis

Donald Trump, the canny deal maker and crowd pleaser, is the third generation of an entrepreneurial family whose turbulent history and extraordinary achievements reflect the transformation of America from a land of scrabbling immigrant survivors to our brand-name era. Donald's German immigrant grandfather Friedrich came to America with one suitcase and limitless faith in his gut instincts. A hotel and saloon keeper who provided miners with shelter and female companionship during the Klondike gold rush, he later opened a storefront real estate operation in Queens, New York. Fred, Friedrich's eldest son, started building houses for neighbors while he was still in high school and was among the first to realize that the New Deal would become America's new gold rush. Using government housing subsidies and loopholes, Fred constructed thousands of new homes in Brooklyn and Queens, made a fortune, and provided start-up capital for his second son, Donald. Donald, determined to pursue a career on a larger, and ultimately all-encompassing, stage, set his sights on Manhattan. It was then in a slump. Sensing the beginning of another golden age, the young developer began positioning himself to take advantage of it. His most important asset during what would turn into the go-go years of the 1980s and the economic bonanza that followed in the 1990s was his insight that, this time, fame itself would be the road to fortune. Donald had already learned from his father how to be a real estate developer. Now, endowed with a talent for extravagant exaggeration, he would become a world-famous developer. Feuds, divorces, sexual boasts, presidential bids, billion-dollar triumphs, billion-dollar disasters -- Donald Trump's roller-coaster life would become one of the most remarkable, and remarkably well-publicized, in the nation. He would be among the most renowned, reviled, and envied figures of his time. Such a route is not new in America. But what distinguishes Donald Trump is his understanding that being famous for being rich could make him even richer. Donald Trump would provide an intriguing, infuriating, and unforgettable model for the biggest gold rush of them all, the new virtual economy in which the appearance of enormous success has come to play such a

About this title

About the Author

Gwenda Blair is the author of the bestselling Almost Golden: Jessica Savitch and the Selling of Television News. She has written for The New York Times, Esquire, The Village Voice, Ms., and many other magazines and newspapers. She lives in Manhattan with her two sons.

Reviews

This well-balanced, serious examination of the Trump family business proves its mettle by not mentioning The Donald's love life until it approaches page 300, and even then Blair is more concerned about Ivana's influence on Trump's business sense than on his hormones. While Donald is the star of Blair's work, his father and grandfather emerge as colorful characters in their own right. Arriving from Germany in 1885, Friedrich Trump spent a brief time in New York before striking out for Alaska, where he operated combined saloon-restaurant-brothels in several gold rush towns. When things went sour, Trump returned to New York, where he opened a modest real estate office in Queens that his son, Fred Jr., would greatly expand. Taking advantage of government programs designed to spur construction during the Depression, the middle Trump made his reputation by constructing well-built houses and apartments for the middle class. Following WWII, when the government was eager to find ways to ease the housing shortage, he used his contacts in city government to become a multimillionaire and one of the biggest landlords in Brooklyn and Queens. But his son wasn't interested in the boroughs; Donald used his father's money to make his fortune in Manhattan and then in Atlantic City. Blair documents the painstaking process whereby Trump transformed the Commodore Hotel to the Grand Hyatt and made his first mark in New York. With access to the Trump family and their business associates, Blair (bestselling author of Almost Gone) gives a first-rate, firsthand account of Donald Trump's rise, fall and resurrection as a business tycoon, while also exploring the motivation that drove him to risk it all to seek even more fame and fortune. Agent, Gloria Loomis. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The triple biography of the entrepreneurial Trumps: Friedrich, son Fred, and grandson Donald.In 1885, 16-year-old Friedrich Trump emigrated from Germany to the US. He found New York too limited a challenge and made his way to the West Coast; by 1891 he owned and operated a restaurant in Seattle and spent the rest of the decade catering to the needs of prospectors searching the Northwest and Yukon Territories for the next Mother Lode. When Trump returned to Germany at the turn of the century to marry and found that his German citizenship was being revoked, he and his new bride returned to America, eventually settling in Queens. Their first son, Fred, didn't have to venture far from home in search of his fortune: as the farmlands of the outer boroughs gave way to housing developments, Fred saw his opportunity and became a successful, widely known home builder in Queens and Brooklyn. Donald, his fourth child, in his turn looked across the river to Manhattan to make his mark, eventually becoming better known for his public image than his financial and development savvy. Although the use of the word "empire" is debatable, Blair (Almost Golden, 1988) reconstructs the history of the Trump family through prodigious amounts of research and personal interviews. Her work pays off in reconstructing fascinating segments of each Trump's life, such as the history of Seattle's early days, the origins of the Federal Housing Authority under Roosevelt, and the Penn Central merger and bankruptcy. Blair had the cooperation of the Trump Organization, but this is by no means a myopic vanity biography; she works hard to present a rounded picture of each man in his entirety-determined, ambitious, and human. She pushes a bit harder than necessary on her idea of a continuum between the ambitions of three men she calls the Founder, the Builder, and the Star, and her portraits are (as with her Jessica Savitch biography) short on psychological insight-but the overall result has echoes of the best work of David Halberstam and Robert Caro.Rich, detailed, and informative, and not just for Trump loyalists or detractors. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

It is hard to imagine Donald Trump sharing billing with anyone, even if it is his father and grandfather. True, "the Donald" did devote a dozen pages to his father, Fred, in Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987) and acknowledge him as the most important influence on his life. In fact, Fred helped bail Donald out of several financial tight spots. Now Blair provides this first in-depth look at Fred Trump as well as Friedrich Trump, Donald's grandfather. The author had the cooperation of Donald and other members of the Trump family, but her book is extensively researched and surprisingly candid in its assessment of the Trumps' business successes and failures and of their personal lives. The eldest Trump immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 16 in 1885, thrived as a saloonkeeper, and ran a brothel during the Klondike gold rush before moving to New York, where he became wealthy selling real estate. His son, taking advantage of government subsidies, got rich by building "ordinary homes for ordinary people" in Queens and Brooklyn. Donald brought us up to date about himself with The Art of the Comeback (1997). But Blair, who is also the author of Almost Golden: Jessica Savitch and the Selling of Television News (1988), provides a new and revealing look that takes into account the early influences on his life. There is certain to be demand for this book not only among people interested in business but also among readers who follow the celebrity TV shows and the gossip columns in the print media. David Rouse
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684808498
• ISBN 13: 9780684808499
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 592