I visited Donald Trump's state park and it's not a park
We’ve just learned Donald Trump paid virtually no income tax in 10 of the last 15 years. While the fragments of Trump’s finances are still being investigated, there’s one unusually large relic of his dealings just an hour’s drive north of New York City.
Last week, I went to Donald J Trump state park, which few people know exists, because it’s not really a park. In fact, it’s two tracts of muddy, overgrown land between New York’s Putnam and Westchester counties that Trump purchased in 1998 for $2.75m, hoping to build a golf course. Neighborhood officials halted the plan, citing environmental concerns, and the land was abandoned. In an alternate timeline, the story would just end here.
But we’re living in Trump’s universe. In 2006, the reality TV mogul donated the undeveloped land to New York state, claiming it was worth $100m – an amount that, if claimed as a qualified conservation contribution, could have saved him a fortune in income tax, potentially carried forward for years. (Confusingly, Trump’s 2016 campaign valued the land at $26.1m in his public list of charitable contributions.)
The lucrative donation deal was approved by Bernadette Castro, a friend of Trump’s and former CEO of Castro Convertibles, a pullout sofa company, who was appointed New York parks commissioner by the then Republican governor, George Pataki. At an elaborate ceremony that year – reportedly complete with a catering tent, bottles of Trump-branded ice water, and TV crew – Castro lavished praise on Trump’s “magnificent donation”, and Pataki boasted the park would “provide recreational opportunities for families and visitors”. Trump declared: “I hope that these 436 acres of property will turn into one of the most beautiful parks anywhere in the world.”
Having visited the park, it all feels like a big joke. The site is surprisingly hard to find – beyond a garish sign on the nearby Taconic State Parkway, there are no clear markers to guide potential visitors – as if the state hopes you won’t actually go. It’s not listed on New York parks’ website, either, although it is labelled a “passive park”, which means it is not maintained and has no amenities.
Upon arrival, you are greeted with nothing. The “parking lot” is an empty gravel patch with a noticeboard that warns visitors to beware of ticks. There are no restrooms, trash cans, or places to sit. The remainder is basically bramble bushes and an empty field with bits of trash. This, I guess, is what $100m looks like under late capitalism.
To be fair, Donald J Trump state park has gone through its own trials and tribulations. The “park” was officially closed in 2010 after budget cuts, saving the state just $2,500 in annual expenses. A subsequent attempt by local residents to turn part of the land into a dog park was scrapped when it was found that some of the site’s decaying structures contained asbestos.
Since Trump’s presidency, lawmakers have tried to rename the abandoned property. Last year, the New York state senator Brad Hoylman introduced two bills – one to name the state park after Heather Heyer, the 31year-old woman who was killed by a white supremacist during the 2017 Charlottesville protests, and another that would hand the renaming process to local residents. But both efforts have stalled, in part due to Trump’s sole demand in the donation contract: that the parklands would “bear a name which includes Mr. Trump’s name … prominently displayed at least at each entrance to each property”.
Perhaps that is why New York doesn’t seem so keen to show the place off. It also makes Donald J Trump state park strangely peaceful: a good place to go for a walk and ponder the president’s remarkable grift.