Stay-at-home Trump a huge security headache
Securing Trump Tower could lead to mayhem in Manhattan if the presidentelect continues to return there.
George W Bush had an easily defended ranch in Texas. The Obamas’ home in Chicago was set back from the road and screened by trees. But the next president of the United States lives in a glass tower above a public shopping mall on the busiest street in New York City.
Securing Trump Tower is raising logistical challenges, and could cause mayhem in Manhattan if the president-elect continues to return there after his inauguration.
‘‘You have a 70-storey glass-clad building sitting on one of the biggest street corners in the world,’’ said Richard Staropoli, who served in the security details of presidents Bill Clinton and Bush and set up a bureau for the Secret Service in New York. In that capacity, after the 9/11 attacks, he visited major buildings in Manhattan that might be considered terrorist targets, including Trump Tower.
‘‘It’s got he said.
‘‘What are you going to do? Will you put a blast shield around the entire building? The first 30 floors are all office space, then you have 40 storeys of very expensive residences.
‘‘You don’t know who is in the surrounding buildings. You have a clear shot at it from Central Park and from any number of surrounding buildings.’’
Buses run up the five lanes of Fifth Avenue in front of the tower. On 57th St, which runs along the tower’s north facade, subway trains rumble beneath and trucks make deliveries to department stores and skyscrapers, including Trump Tower. Fifth Avenue is also a thoroughfare for trucks heading into the city from a major bridge on to Manhattan.
‘‘Shutting down all that stuff is not an option,’’ Staropoli said. ‘‘You will cripple the city.’’ significant problems,’’
He recalls trips to Manhattan with a sitting president. ‘‘Even if you are Donald Trump, you probably have a car and a driver, maybe two. When you are the president, you have 35 cars [and] you have about two dozen motorcyclists of the NYPD.
‘‘Where are you going to put all this stuff? You can’t park it in the basement of Trump Tower. There were days when we took President Bush to the Waldorf, we had so many cars we had to close two streets.’’
He suspects that to defend a president in Trump Tower, security would want to close parts of Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue.
‘‘You can’t have a guy with suction cups climbing the building,’’ Staropoli said – a reference to the You have a 70-storey glass-clad building sitting on one of the biggest street corners in the world. It’s got significant problems. man who did this while Trump was a candidate, reaching the 21st floor.
Staropoli knows Trump and is friends with his elder sons. He says that wherever Trump is, he likes to return at night to Manhattan, to his family.
Staropoli is now chief security officer for a large investment group, but this week he was summoned to Trump Tower. ‘‘I’m a nominee for an undersecretary position in the Department of Homeland Security,’’ he said.
It was a day of torrential rain, and shoppers were held up by the barricades that now line both pavements of Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower. People wanting to shop at Tiffany’s or Gucci had to consent to be searched.
On entering Trump Tower, visitors and residents alike must run their bags through a scanner. A gallery of reporters and photographers is camped out at the base of one of the golden escalators, and C-Span, the public service TV network that broadcasts the US Congress’s deliberations, now broadcasts a live feed of the Trump Tower shopping arcade, through which pass statesmen and cabinet nominees.
Staropoli suspects that Trump will have to abandon hopes of returning regularly to Trump Tower as the limits of his new position become clearer.
‘‘Having said that, if he says to his staff, ‘I want the same operations in the White House set up in Trump Tower’, they are going to do it.’’
This week a spokesman for Trump’s transition team was asked if there were plans for a secure room in Trump Tower. He ignored the question.