Letter: New York­ers con­tem­plate ver­dict on one of their own

“Jubil­a­tion” is not exactly the word I would choose to describe the reac­tion at my gym when the Trump ver­dict was read out (“New York reacts with jubil­a­tion and dis­be­lief”, Report, June 1). A woman, a couple bikes down from me, was look­ing at her phone and laugh­ing and smil­ing, but I am not sure it was the ver­dict that so amused her. I felt immense sat­is­fac­tion, regard­less of what hap­pens in the future, that 12 of Don­ald Trump’s fel­low Man­hat­tan­ites had finally said “no” (or in this case “yes”) to him.

I believe Trump has been a tir­ing, ooz­ing sore on the New York City land­scape for close to 50 years, and I know oth­ers feel the same. Yet rarely did any­one who could have said “no” to him actu­ally say so. From gos­sip colum­nists look­ing for a great “get” to would-be “act­resses” and “mod­els” look­ing for, if not money, then some good expos­ure, to bankers look­ing for big­ger bonuses and pro­mo­tions, few dared to say “no”.

My biggest dis­ap­point­ment is with the “lead­ers” of New York’s so-called “legit­im­ate” real estate com­munity, who could have, but didn’t, warn voters about Trump’s past deal­ings. But per­haps that is just because this is what New York has always been about — from Gatsby to any num­ber of char­ac­ters in Tom Wolfe’s The Bon­fire of the Van­it­ies to Trump him­self, New York is about striv­ing — whether for money, expos­ure, power, or the top of the heap.

Alice Bray
New York, NY, US