As Trump’s brand fades, so will his Tower sign
The gleaming 20-foot-6-inchhigh, backlit sign on the riverfront facade of the Trump International Hotel and Tower is once again attracting attention, which is surprising because it has been a daily eyesore since May 2014 when it was installed. Nothing about it has changed, but we have.
Initial criticism centered on aesthetic and visual concerns, in so much as the sign disrupted the architectural design, let alone the entire urban context. At the time, Donald Trump was just a realityTV-star-cum-real-estate-developer, whose name was his brand, which he channeled into politics a year later in June 2015 and then leveraged into a presidency. Now, for at least some portion of over 80 million Americans who voted in November, the name-cumbrand-cum-person-as-politicalparty is a trigger existing somewhere between hate speech and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
This sentiment (“the sign just doesn’t represent Chicago’s values”) underpins Ald. Gilbert Villegas’, 36th, introduction of an ordinance intended to remove the Trump sign, upon its annual renewal application, by denying a sign permit to any person convicted of treasonous, seditious or subversive activities. Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, a co-sponsor and in whose ward the sign conspicuously projects, said in support, “I’m tired of the daily reminder of the carnage this man has inflicted upon our country.” Former Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin emphasized the point, “It’s a symbol of a large, impossible-to-miss symbol of a president who incited a riot against the Capitol.”
A stronger case to remove the Trump sign might be by treating it as a hazard, a target and attraction endangering public safety and welfare.
As much as the Trump sign is a visual nuisance, even offense, it is also a shiny object, an easy distraction from the building’s important, material failures affecting the city: a developer unable to lease a riverfront esplanade’s worth of commercial retail space depriving the city of tax revenue and a cooling system that has not met environmental regulations as a major, disproportionate user of river water, drawing nearly 20 million gallons a day.
Despite previous attempts to remove the sign after it was fastened to the building, it received city approval, after a reduction in size, by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and was ostensibly sanctioned by Reilly and former city zoning administrator Patricia Scudiero. In response to public reaction, the city created a Chicago River Corridor Special Sign District to prevent future monstrosities, later amended, grandfathering in the Trump sign. This sign saga was an object lesson, foreshadowing so many actions and policies typical during the Trump administration that broke conventions and norms, which revealed the inadequacy of precedent and existing guidelines against a shameless actor, thus requiring formal, stronger rules to address what had been wrought.
At any rate, a conviction in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial — former President Donald Trump’s second — seems improbable, requiring 17 Republican senators for the necessary twothirds majority, which would render any sign ordinance provision moot.
Private property rights, and the
protections they bestow, are among the most sacred principles — and therefore strongest laws — in our capitalist American democracy. Relying on morals to prompt revised local ordinances in order to restrict an individual commercial business is a difficult, tenuous proposition.
However, cities wield enormous license through their police power to ensure public health, safety and welfare. For example, Mayor Lori Lightfoot cited “public safety” for the removal of the Christopher Columbus statues in Grant and Arrigo parks from city land last July, not any form of municipal moral activism.
A stronger case to remove the Trump sign might be by treating it as a hazard, a target and attraction endangering public safety and welfare. The name, emblazoned on the building, makes the area a site of demonstration for rallies and counter-rallies. In the protests following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and throughout the summer, confrontations between police and citizens occurred on Wacker Drive between Michigan and Wabash avenues. Amid real and perceived moments of turmoil, to protect this and other downtown property, the city raised the movable
bridges on the river.
More often, due to the sign’s size, location and position, many people routinely stop on the narrow, busy sidewalks on the Michigan Avenue bridge, pausing to take a picture with it and a choice finger, a probable indicator of their political affiliation.
In effect, the sign is a pedestrian gaper’s delay, impeding traffic with an easy resolution. Like Twitter permanently suspending @realdonaldtrump, an argument to remove it would be to make the city safer, because the cityscape would be quieter.
I doubt that the Trump sign will be taken down in the near future through a revised ordinance. But signage, by nature, is temporary, dependent on the viability of the business operating on site. Having left office with a 29% approval rating, the Trump name and brand have been further tarnished, weakening hotel occupancy and condo values, compounded by the pandemic’s effect on the economy. The market is stronger and more ruthless than any municipal ordinance to pressure change. If business interests do not prompt a building de-brand, then the considerable loans the Trump Organization needs to repay in the next few years to Deutsche Bank just might
force a wholesale change of ownership.
Building names change all the time due to new ownership or expired rights, along with their prominent signage. Nine-foothigh, illuminated letters spelled out P-L-A-Y-B-O-Y atop the Palmolive Building starting in 1968, when Hugh Hefner moved the adult men’s magazine’s office and club there. When the company left in 1989, so did the sign. Asked whether it should be saved, influential Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman said, “The signs don’t represent anything of cultural worth. If we’re going to save them, we might as well save everything of no meaning in society.” Former Tribune architecture critic Paul Gapp’s sentiments about the type overall were clear, “Illuminated signs affixed to skyscrapers (in Chicago, usually by insurance companies) have always seemed in poor taste to me.”
In short, rooftop signage in Chicago, and debates around them, are nothing new. But, they may be instructive. However bright at the moment, eventually they become a dim memory.