The Bonwit Teller Art Destruction: Trump Promised Art Deco Treasures to the Metropolitan Museum, Then Had Them Jackhammered
Tier 3Documented1980-01-01 to 1980-06-05
Factual Summary
In 1980, Donald Trump promised to donate historically significant Art Deco architectural elements from the Bonwit Teller building in Manhattan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then ordered the artworks destroyed instead, claiming that preserving them would have delayed the construction of Trump Tower.
The Bonwit Teller building, a landmark department store constructed in 1929 at 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, featured two monumental limestone relief panels above its entrance depicting semi-nude female figures in a geometric Art Deco style. The building also featured a large ornamental grillwork composed of bronze latticework over the entrance. When Trump acquired the building's site in 1979 for demolition to make way for Trump Tower, the Metropolitan Museum expressed interest in acquiring the friezes and the grillwork for its collection of 20th-century decorative art. Trump agreed to donate the pieces if his workers could remove them from the building's facade.
The promise was not honored. On Trump's orders, demolition workers used acetylene torches to cut up the bronze grillwork, then used jackhammers and crowbars to dislodge the limestone relief panels from the building's facade. The panels fell to the ground inside the building and shattered. The destruction was irreversible.
When journalists inquired about the destroyed art, Trump initially responded through a spokesperson using the fictitious name "John Barron," a pseudonym Trump used regularly in the 1980s and 1990s when speaking to reporters while pretending to be his own publicist. The person identified as "John Barron" told the New York Times that "the merit of these stones was not great enough to justify the efforts to save them." Trump later acknowledged the destruction publicly, offering a different explanation: that removing the pieces intact would have cost more than $500,000 in taxes, construction delays, and other expenses, and that the delay "could have cost me millions." He also claimed that the friezes "ichad no artistic merit."
Ashton Hawkins, then vice president and secretary of the Metropolitan Museum's board of trustees, responded: "Architectural sculpture of this quality is rare and would have made definite sense in our collections." Art historians and preservationists characterized the destruction as an act of cultural vandalism driven by impatience and cost-cutting.
The Bonwit Teller episode became one of the earliest documented instances of Trump breaking a public commitment when honoring it became inconvenient, and of using a fictitious spokesperson to manage the resulting public criticism.
Primary Sources
1. New York Times: "Bonwit's 2 Art Deco Panels Utilised in Utilising Building," June 5, 1980
2. Statement attributed to "John Barron" (Trump pseudonym) to the New York Times, June 1980
3. Statement by Ashton Hawkins, Vice President and Secretary, Board of Trustees, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980
4. Trump's own later public statements acknowledging and defending the destruction
Corroborating Sources
1. Artnet News: "Donald Trump Has a History of Pulverizing Historic Buildings," 2022
2. HuffPost: "Surprised Trump Is Destroying History? He Did The Same Thing Building Trump Tower," 2025
3. The Daily Beast: "Trump's East Wing Demolition Isn't His First Shocking Historic Smashup," 2025
4. Places Journal: "Donald Trump and the Bonwit Teller Sculptures," architectural criticism
5. Secrets of Manhattan: "The Bonwit Teller Building: How Donald Trump Destroyed an Art Deco Treasure"
Counterarguments and Context
Trump argued that the cost and delay of carefully removing the architectural elements would have been prohibitive, citing a potential $500,000 expense and construction delays that could have cost millions. He also questioned the artistic merit of the pieces, a judgment contradicted by the Metropolitan Museum's expressed interest in acquiring them. Some have noted that architectural preservation standards were less rigorously enforced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that the destruction, while regrettable, was not illegal at the time. Trump's defenders pointed out that demolishing buildings is a routine part of real estate development and that Trump was not the first developer to sacrifice architectural elements during construction. However, the specific sequence of events, promising the art to a museum, then destroying it without notice, distinguishes this case from ordinary demolition. The promise was made publicly and to a major cultural institution. The destruction was ordered by Trump personally. The initial response was delivered through a fictitious spokesperson using a fabricated identity. The explanation shifted from "the art had no merit" to "removing it would have cost too much," suggesting that the destruction was driven by financial calculation rather than aesthetic judgment.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the key facts are documented through contemporaneous New York Times reporting, the Metropolitan Museum's public statements, and Trump's own subsequent acknowledgments. The Bonwit Teller episode is significant as an early example of behavioral patterns that would recur throughout Trump's career: making commitments and then breaking them when inconvenient, using fictitious identities to deflect criticism, and prioritizing cost savings over obligations to others. The incident also illustrates the tension between the developer's interest in speed and profit and the public's interest in cultural preservation.