“Trump’s appalling treatment of women, his history of racism, his attacks on immigrants, his mockery of the disabled, his tax avoidance, his outright lying,” a petition said, are “antithetical to the values we and our families believe in.”
Amid growing embarrassment at their building's name, residents at Trump Place on Manhattan's Upper West Side have begun petitioning their building to change it.
As was first reported by BuzzFeed News, the renters of the apartments at 140, 160, and 180 Riverside Blvd. wanted the candidate's gold-plated name removed and refused to call the building by its original owner's name.
Instead, they've been calling it "Equity Residential" — the real estate company that's owned the property since 2007 — or simply by their address.
Many of the residents told BuzzFeed News they want the name removed from the building — or even have their rent lowered — as compensation for what they say is a property devalued by its name.
On October 17, hundreds of residents received this flyer under their door, which promoted a petition for building management to "dump the Trump name."
Julia Reinstein / BuzzFeed News
The petition says "Trump’s appalling treatment of women, his history of racism, his attacks on immigrants, his mockery of the disabled, his tax avoidance, his outright lying" are "antithetical to the values we and our families believe in."
Linda Gottlieb, the petition's creator, said she found it "insulting" that her building's staff, many of whom are immigrants and people of color, have to work in a building bearing Trump's name.
"The utter hypocrisy just got to me," Gottlieb said.
With the help of her husband and a neighbor, she printed 900 flyers and slid them under her neighbors' doors.
More than 400 people have signed the petition in its first week, many leaving comments calling the name "a disgrace to NYC" and "represents everything horrible and despicable on this Earth."
David Hartie, a resident who heard about the petition and "signed immediately," said he and his wife debated for over a year before choosing to live there, their "biggest gripe" being its name.
"Maybe, just maybe, there was a time where the name symbolized something good to some, but I think that those days are waning," he said.
Marty McKenna, Equity Residential's vice president of investor and public relations, told BuzzFeed News they "have a contractual obligation regarding the use of the name."
"We will assess the continued use of the name at the appropriate time taking into consideration the issues raised by the residents in their petition," McKenna said.
Even so, changes may already be underway. According to building residents, doormen and concierges are in the process of getting new uniforms that will no longer have Trump's name on them.
Shruti Pandey, who's lived in Trump Place for three years, said her husband emailed building management about a month and a half ago to express their desire for a name change and said it was "surprisingly quite well-received" and they said "they would look into it."
"There was a whole email thread back and forth, and funnily enough, the person who responded to him at one point changed her signature from 160 Trump Place to 160 Riverside Blvd.," Pandey said.
It's a bit of a different story at the Trump Place buildings at 200 and 220 Riverside Blvd., which — unlike the Equity owned buildings — are still managed by Trump International Realty.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/2eWjkdh
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