Trump rarely leaves

Exactly one week after becoming President-elect, Donald Trump stepped outside his namesake fortress here for the first time.

He ventured just five blocks, to dinner at the 21 Club — a darkmahogany-and-red-leatherbanquette throwback, where model airplanes and sports memorabilia hang from the ceiling.

The vintage haunt, where Trump dined with family members, feels like home. The waiters know his preferred table (No. 14, which Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon also used) and his regular order (the US$36 burger, well done, with fries).

So it has been for the Presidentelect, who has retreated to one comfortable, familiar refuge after another — his soaring Manhattan tower, his white leather-upholstered Boeing jet, his lush golf courses, his opulent beachside castle.

Trump is a man isolated, increasingly cocooned away from the voters who lifted him to his seemingly improbable victory. He favours his own people and his own places, creating the veneer of accessibility — his tweets reach millions, and he still answers his cellphone — while placing himself in almost entirely habitual settings.

He spends most of his days in Trump Tower, with few close friends and few meaningful one-on-one interactions beyond the family members, advisers and loyalists who are whisked by gold-coloured lift to