Four fashion models—all in white hardhats, two in bikinis—posed in an earthmover’s scoop with an ax-wielding Fred Trump while his guests at the big “V.I.P. Farewell Ceremony” sipped Champagne and hefted bricks.

The Trump patriarch had personally distributed the bricks and urged everyone to take a turn throwing them through an iconic smiling face that had become the symbol of Coney Island when it was America’s capital of merriment.

The smiling face was painted on glass at the entrance to the Palace of Fun at Steeplechase Park, the country’s original and longest running amusement park. Fred Trump had bought Steeplechase from the founder’s aging daughter in 1965 for $2.5 million. He shut it down with the intention of building seaside apartment towers in its place. 

Democratic machine would be able to make that obstacle disappear. His particular pal with the machine, Abe Beame, was the favorite to become the next mayor of New York in the 1965 election.

And being connected with the machine also meant being connected to the Mafia along with the construction industry the mob controlled. The fix was in for the towers to rise by the sea and dispel the scandals that had swirled around the Trump name. ...