Page 68 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

Freddy still believed, though, that if he had a hand in pulling the development off, he’d be on a much better footing with his father.
That summer my parents rented a cottage in Montauk from Memorial Day through Labor Day so Dad could escape the pressure cooker in Brooklyn. Mom planned to stay with me and Fritz full-time, and Dad would fly back and forth on the weekends. The recently renamed JFK was a fifteen-minute drive from the Trump Management office, and Montauk Airport, really just a small airstrip in an open field, was right across the street from the cottage, making it an easy commute. Freddy’s favorite thing to do was still fly his friends to Montauk and take them out on the water.
By the time the summer was over, my grandfather’s plans for Steeplechase were in peril, and he knew it. Fred had been counting on his longtime connections to the Brooklyn Democratic machine, which had eased the way for so many of his developments in the past. By the mid-1960s, however, his political cronies were falling out of power, and it soon became clear that he wasn’t going to get the rezoning he needed. Nevertheless, he made Freddy responsible for the near impossible: making Steeplechase a success.
Time was running out. Suddenly, my father, at twenty-eight, had a more public role, giving press conferences and arranging photo ops. In one picture, my dad, thin in his trench coat, stands in the foreground of a warehouse, empty and cavernous, staring into the vast space, looking small and utterly lost.
In a last-ditch effort to circumvent a push by local residents to have Steeplechase declared a landmark, which would have halted the development and scuttled his plans, Fred decided to host an event at the Pavilion of Fun, built in 1907. The purpose was to celebrate the park’s demolition—in other words, he would destroy what the community was trying to save before landmark status could be secured. He had my father give a press conference in order to announce the plan, making him the face of the controversy. The extravaganza featured models in bathing suits. Guests were invited to throw bricks (available for purchase) through the iconic window featuring an enormous image of the park’s mascot, Tilly, and his wide, toothy smile. In a photograph my grandfather holds a sledgehammer while grinning at a bikini-clad woman.