Who Owns Trump Tower?

Donald Trump acquired the development site at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in 1979, when the Bonwit Teller department store occupied the corner. The demolition of the store in 1980 became the project's first controversy: limestone Art Deco reliefs and decorative grillwork that Trump had promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art were jackhammered instead, drawing condemnation from preservationists and the museum itself.

Construction finished in 1983 under architect Der Scutt of Swanke Hayden Connell. The design produced a 58-story, roughly 664-foot tower with a sawtooth glass facade set with 28 planted setbacks. Trump has consistently marketed the building as 68 stories, a figure that counts the atrium levels differently from standard floor numbering.

The six-story public atrium, finished in pink-orange Breccia Pernice marble with an 80-foot waterfall, was created as a privately owned public space in exchange for zoning bonuses that allowed extra floor area. The atrium became a tourist draw and generated recurring legal friction with the city over benches and kiosk placement that the public-space designation required.

Residential units, sold as condominiums, attracted celebrity buyers in the 1980s and 1990s including Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg and Johnny Carson. Trump himself occupied the triplex penthouse on the top floors, decorated in a Louis XIV style that became a signature image of the brand.

The tower took on a second life as a political symbol in 2015, when Trump announced his presidential candidacy descending its escalator, and again in 2016 when it served as campaign headquarters and transition offices. Security zones and media staging on Fifth Avenue turned the block into a permanent news site through his first term.

Into the 2020s the tower remains the organizational seat of the Trump empire. The Trump Organization runs its operations from the office floors, and the name has been replicated on branded towers in Chicago, Las Vegas and international licensing deals, though the Fifth Avenue original is the only property the organization developed itself under that name in New York.

The building's engineering was ambitious for its era. Its concrete shear-wall frame rises 664 feet over 58 stories, making it one of the world's tallest reinforced concrete residential structures when completed. The six-story atrium, faced in Breccia Pernice marble with a 60-foot waterfall, was designed to function as a public space under New York's bonus zoning rules, a legal arrangement that later generated disputes when seating was periodically removed.

The tower's retail condominium has cycled through luxury tenants including Asprey before Gucci signed a long-term lease for the flagship corner space. Residential units, individually owned condominiums rather than rentals, have traded at a wide range of prices over the years; values dipped during the late 2010s political controversies and partially recovered in the following years.

After Trump entered politics, the building took on a second identity as a security zone. NYPD barriers, a Secret Service presence and intermittent street closures made the block between 56th and 57th Streets one of the most policed retail corridors in America. During Trump's first term the tower served as transition headquarters, and it returned to that role during the 2024 to 2025 transition into his second term, when security cordons again restricted pedestrian access to Fifth Avenue retailers.