Trump's long disdain for the art world

[Donald] Trump has never exhibited refined taste. He drapes everything in gold. He orders his steaks well done . He uses Scotch tape to hold his ties together. But as a prominent member of New York City's social elite (more or less) over the past 30-plus years, it's been impossible for him to avoid the art world. In an effort to better understand Trump's relationship with the finer things in life, we've compiled some of those interactions.

It might not have been art, exactly, but Steeplechase Park was a beloved Coney Island institution with a marvelous glass façade. Fred Trump purchased the amusement park in 1965. A year later, he demolished it, and did so without much respect for its standing in the community. Despite efforts to landmark the site, Trump threw a demolition party in which attendees were invited to throw bricks through its iconic glass panels. What survived the bricks was razed to make way for a waterfront housing complex. Nothing was ever built, though, because the land was not zoned for residential use, a hurdle Trump mistakenly assumed he would be able to clear. He eventually sold the land for a $1.2 million profit.

So significant was Trump's callous destruction of Steeplechase Park that in 2016 the Coney Island History Project hosted an exhibit mourning the 50th anniversary of the loss.