Decades ago, Columbia refused to pay Trump $ 400 million

Donald Trump required $ 400 million from Columbia University.

When he did not take his way, he fell out of a meeting with university administrators and later publicly destroyed the university president as “dummy” and “a complete dirty”.

This drama dates back to 25 years.

Today, these two New York institutions-the billionaire president of the United States and the 270-year-old University of Ivy League who has cultivated 87 Nobel Prizes-have been locked in an excellent conflict that includes freedom of speech, academic freedom.

The first battle between Mr Trump and Columbia concerned most of the New York New York awards. It was more than a lucrative real estate agreement, according to interviews with 17 property investors and former university and internal administrators, as well as modern news articles.

Some former university officials are quietly wondering if the ultimately unsuccessful ownership transaction rushed to the seeds of Mr Trump’s current catering in Columbia. His administration asked the University to turn the enormous control of his policies and even the decisions of the curriculum in his attempt to eliminate anti -Semitism on campus. It has also canceled federal grants and contracts in Columbia – worth $ 400 million.

On Friday, Columbia acknowledged some of Mr Trump’s demands on protest policies, security practices and the Middle East Studies Department. The move was worried about some members of the school who were worried that the university had agreed with the changes in an effort to earn the full $ 400 million. The Trump organization and the White House refused to comment.

In the previous controversy, Lee C. Bollinger, a former President of Columbia, who eventually chose not to follow the ownership of Mr Trump, chose instead to extend the Columbia campus to land next to the university. “For Columbia I wanted a much more ambitious project than Trump’s ownership would allow the one that fits the surrounding qualities, combined with the Morningside campus and the Harlem community,” he said in an interview.

The conflict was rooted in the late 1990s, when Columbia faced a common challenge in New York: it is in one of the most expensive and congestion of cities in the world, wanted more space. The federal government overloads the budget of the National Institutes of Health and to compete with other universities for research grants, Columbia needed room to accommodate more scientists and laboratories.

Expanding the footprint beyond the campus of Morningside Heights to neighboring Harlem would be complicated. In 1968, the university began to build a gym at Morningside Park. Design, construction delays and limited access to Harlem residents led to “screams of separation and racism”, according to libraries at the Columbia University. The tension between the University and the Community leaders in Harlem has continued for decades.

Columbia’s officials and officials hoped to correct the relationship, but they knew they also had to look for alternatives.

Enter Mr Trump. It wasn’t yet a television star of reality, he was then a responsible real estate manufacturer, with a love for the press’s attention. He offered a home for an extension of Columbia, an unpaid ownership on the upper west side between Lincoln Center and the Hudson River. It was known as Riverside south before the Trump Place was redesigned.

The property was on the south end of a much larger 77 -acre space that Mr Trump had been in since the early 1970s, a former shipyard that was once the largest developed parcel in Manhattan. In the early 1990s, Mr Trump had not made progress in developing the site after raising more than $ 800 million in debt, most with very high interest rates and could not afford banking payments for the property.

But in 1994, two Hong Kong investors came at his disposal. They agreed to fund his vision for high houses, with Mr Trump remaining the public face of the project. He would also look for $ 350 million in federal subsidies.

However, Mr Trump was struggling to decide what to grow at the southern end. Watch buyers, including CBS. It has been boasting that the network was close to a deal for a 1.5 million -square -foot studio on the property.

But CBS finally tightened, deciding in early 1999 to stay in its studios on the west 57th Street.

A few months later, Mr Trump suffered every opportunity he could. “My father taught me everything I know and would understand what I’m going to say,” Mr Trump said after his father, Fred Trump. Mr Trump then crossed his plans for Trump Place. “It’s a wonderful project,” he said.

Until 2000, Mr Trump had attacked a new partner: Columbia, whom he had heard, was looking for space. There would be a departure for the university. It was more than two miles from the Columbia campus and relatively small, demanding that it be created, with tall buildings.

Still, the idea caught the attention of many managers and some top managers. For more than a year, they discussed what could be done with the Earth, mainly with Trump’s officials and sometimes with Mr Trump himself. Mr Trump even created a name for the possible development: “Columbia Prime”.

But in the negotiations, his demands have often changed, even when reports appear on Mr Trump’s favored tabloid, the New York Post, arguing that Columbia was close to the market.

In a private one, he threw around many prices, exceeding $ 400 million, according to a Columbia official from that time, a figure that an anonymous source is leaking to the post sometimes.

Regardless of the amount, Mr Trump told Columbia officials, the university will also get so much to rename the Donald J. Trump School of Business.

One manager rejected Mr Trump’s request. The university renamed buildings, the man told him, noting that his school of engineering had recently been named a businessman who had donated $ 26 million. If Mr Trump wanted to make such a gift, the man said, there were other Columbia officials who would be willing to meet. Mr Trump did not donate.

As the discussions dragged, many people from Columbia were frustrated by their relationship with Mr Trump. Still, the two sides set up a meeting in a meeting room at Midtown Manhattan in order to move a forward transaction.

Some administrators and managers arrived with a report prepared on behalf of a group of real estate at Goldman Sachs, attending every meeting between Columbia officials and Trump’s representatives. It describes what the investment bank considered a fair value for the land.

Mr Trump appeared late, was informed of the analysis of the University’s real estate and became deceitful.

Goldman Sachs had a value of $ 65 million to $ 90 million, according to a person in the room. In an effort to soothe Mr Trump, one manager offered that the university would be willing to pay the top of the series.

It didn’t matter. A furious Trump came out less than five minutes after the meeting began.

The university did not formally abandon a possible expansion to Mr Trump’s property until Mr Bollinger took over the president in 2002. At that time, Columbia had examined two options: an extension to the top west side plot or a move north on West Harlem, where Columbia had begun.

In his inaugural speech, Mr. Bollinger talked about the need to extend the university, inviting the school a “great urban university” which is “more limited to space”.

“This state of things, however, cannot last,” he added. “To fulfill our responsibilities and ambitions, Columbia must be extended significantly over the next decade. Either we are expanding the property we already have in possession of Morningside Heights, Manhattanville or Washington Heights or if we follow a multi -university design design or beyond.

He evaluated the Trump option for a satellite campus and also began to have talks on repairing the slit with Harlem’s leaders and expanding to the north, creating a continuous footprint.

He quickly identified that Harlem, not Donald Trump, was the future of Columbia. “This is an opportunity in Manhattanville to create something of enormous vitality and beauty,” Bollinger told The Times in 2003. “That’s not just to get in and throw some buildings.”

Mr Trump’s West Side was finally developed after Hong Kong’s billionaires, who owned a majority share of it, sold the entire site for $ 1.76 billion.

However, Mr Trump was outraged. He accused investors of selling it for much less than he could have. He sued them for compensation of $ 1 billion. The case was rejected, with the judge pointing out that growth had sold for $ 188 million more than her latest estimation.

If he was overwhelmed by the success of Riverside South, Mr Trump had another asset he appreciated: his own reputation.

“The Apprentice” made its television debut in January 2004 and became an instant blow.

But Mr Trump’s Mega-Stardom didn’t make him forget about the failed agreement with Columbia.

In 2010, about eight years after Mr Bollinger, Trump came into contact with Mr Trump to tell him that the school would extend to Harlem-two journalists of Columbia students who had written a profile of the University President who received a Golden Letter from a Golden letter.

It included a copy of a Missive who had recently sent to the Columbia Board of Directors, in which he called on the campus of the Manhattanville “Lousy” and Mr. Bollinger “a dummy”.

“Columbia Prime was a great idea that a great man thought, who eventually ran because of bad leadership in Columbia,” Mr Trump wrote.

He signed him with a black index and was written, “Bollinger is terrible!”

Mr Trump also shared his indignation in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Years after joining the deal,” the newspaper said, “Trump is still annoying.

Mr Trump was probably loyal to the authorities described in “How to Get Rich”, a tips book he wrote a few years after his agreement with Columbia went sour.

A chapter is titled “Sometimes you have to keep a grudge.”

Maggie Haberman They contributed reports. Susan C. Beachy; Kitty Bennett; Alain delaquérière and Sheelagh McNeill He contributed research.