Trump Organization Gets Another Day in (Administrative) Court

Pictured: Trump Tower. Image via Google Maps

Midtown Manhattan, NY — Representatives for one of Donald Trump's most famous buildings (and his home) will have a chance to avoid a $10,000 fine imposed last month on the property's owners by New York City.

Trump Tower Commercial LLC, which owns Fifth Avenue's Trump Tower, missed a hearing in June before the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), which rules on disputes over building codes.

At issue are a pair of marble benches the company long ago removed from the lobby of Trump Tower, replacing them with kiosks selling Trump merchandise (and, for a time, "Make America Great Again" hats).

As previously reported by DNAinfo, while the lobby is privately owned, it's zoned as public space and must therefore be used for the public good. The city deemed that the benches met this obligation, while the kiosks did not.

Trump Tower paid a $4,000 fine earlier this year for the kiosks and pulled them out. But the company didn't re-install a bench as required, producing another violation.

The corporation appealed but then missed its June 23 OATH hearing, resulting in an automatic $10,000 fine.

Michael Cohen, a spokesman for the Trump Organization, told Patch that the meeting was accidentally skipped due to "a scheduling error," adding that Trump Tower would attempt to reschedule it.

On Wednesday, OATH confirmed that a new meeting date has been set for Aug. 11 at 8:30 a.m.

OATH spokeswoman Marisa Senigo told Patch that if Trump's representatives are victorious during the hearing, both the second violation for the missing bench and the $10,000 fine will be erased.

But if Trump Tower doesn't show at the August hearing, the company won't get another do-over and will be forced to fork over the money, Senigo said.

In case the core issue sounds overly bureaucratic and arcane, just talk to Jerold S. Kayden, a professor of urban planning at Harvard University who also runs the group Advocates for Privately Owned Public Space.

Kayden thinks the benches should be returned to Trump Tower's lobby, if for no other reason than in the name of general principle.

"In a crowded, very dense city like New York, these sorts of small public spaces perform an important role,” he told DNAinfo earlier this year. “When they are diminished by being closed or taken over by adjacent private uses, a little bit of the public life of the city is equally diminished.”