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Essay on Donald Trump
Donald Trump (1946–), the famous American business executive was born in New York City. After attending the Wharton business school, he joined the family real estate business. A self-promoting and flamboyant dealmaker, he was able to secure loans with minimal collateral in the freewheeling 1980s and created an empire in real estate, casinos, sports, and transportation. By 1990, however, the effects of recession had left him unable to meet loan payments. Although he shored up his businesses with additional loans and postponed interest payments, mounting debt brought Trump to business bankruptcy and the brink of personal bankruptcy. Banks and bondholders lost hundreds of millions of dollars but opted to restructure his debt to avoid risking losing even more in a court fight. By 1994, Trump had eliminated a huge portion of his $900 million personal debt and reduced substantially his nearly $3.5 billion in business debt. Forced to relinquish the Trump Shuttle (bought in 1989), he retained Trump Tower in New York City and control of his three casinos in Atlantic City. In 1999, Trump toyed with running for president on the Reform party ticket. Widely known as simply "the Donald," Trump stars in his own reality television show, which debuted in 2004.
The Wollman Memorial Skating Rink in Central Park was badly in need of repair in the late 1970s. After several years of preparation and planning, the New York City Parks and Recreation Department closed down the rink in 1980 for a rebuilding project scheduled to take two years and cost under $5 million. The project involved dismantling the old surface, then installing a new network of coolant pipes and pouring concrete over them. But for reasons that two subsequent studies failed to fully explain, the work went badly. Midproject delays left the coolant pipes exposed to the elements for a year....
