Trump name reportedly scrubbed from New York ice rinks
Donald Trump appears to be getting the cold shoulder from his own ice skating rinks, after the Trump organization reportedly took the unusual step of removing the president’s name from the two Central Park businesses ahead of the holiday season.
First reported by the Washington Post, city officials said the decision to remove Trump’s name in recent weeks was taken by the Trump organization but that the company has not offered a reason. His company still owns the skating rinks, which is among his oldest businesses, but it’s the first time Trump’s own organization has attempted to downplay the connection between the president and his businesses.
Trump has previously called one of the venues “the greatest ice rink in the country”.
One employee at the Wollman rink this week told a Washington Post reporter that the move may be an attempt to keep from losing customers who are averse to the president’s politics. In 2017, the New York Post reported that an elite private school on the Upper East Side canceled its annual ice-skating party after parents refused to send their children to a rink bearing his name.
But the Washington Post also reported the rinks’ income actually rose between 2015 and 2018.
“You know what this tells me?” Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University told the Washington Post. “He’s a businessman. He knows the name Wollman [rink] is better without Trump.”
The ice rinks were a boon to the Trump name and contributed to his rise to local and national celebrity. Trump took over the project after New York City stalled and busted its budget in its renovation. The former real estate mogul finished the project ahead of schedule, boosting the Trump brand.
Images posted on Twitter by a local reporter on Saturday showed the ice rink now bears the name “Wollman Rink Central Park”.
But according to a Washington Post photo, one Trump sign proved too large to cover – a white tarp put over it still left a big red “T” sticking out.