I Spent The Night With The Trumps—Here’s How New York City's Most Controversial Hotel Holds Up

I scoured Google Maps, the Michelin Guide, and Yelp in search of that elusive something; a place where I could feel as pampered as I did at the Plaza while sparing my pocketbook the life-draining gunshot wound that is the final bill. Many options surfaced, but those within budget seemed shady, and the ones I loved had me seeing quadruple zeros.

And then, it caught my eye. A little corner of real estate—1 Central Park West—at the edge of Columbus Circle, across the street from New York’s favorite park. On Google Maps, a tiny bed icon marked it as a place of lodging, but there was no identifying name. I zoomed in…in…in…before I finally clicked to bring up the mystery icon’s name and information.

Ah, so that was why.

The world’s largest search engine had gone to impressive lengths to hide from view the name of this peculiar property because…its name was Trump.

What Lies Behind a Gold Facade?

The Trump International Hotel (“and Tower,” as it used to be called before the powers-that-be decided to give the building’s residential address a less controversial title) stands tall at forty-four stories, hovering somewhat imperiously (yet not particularly pompously) above Columbus Circle, between Broadway and Central Park West.

Situated directly adjacent to the 59th Street Station, the Trump is, quite literally, at the center of the universe—at least by New York standards. In fact, when the establishment opened its doors in 1996, it heralded itself as “the most important new address in the world.” And, for all intents and purposes, it was, holding over a decade’s worth of Forbes five-star ratings (the highest honor a hotel can receive from the company) and making AAA’s list of “Top Hotels in New York City” from 2012 until…2019.

Then came 2020.

The most tense and divisive election our generation has experienced (yet) happened, and the Trump International Tower plunged from its prized perch to a place of inconspicuity and near-ignominy. As the political world worked overtime to tarnish the Trump name, the Trump International lost the same amount of shine until, eventually, it abandoned its notoriety in full.

Today, the Trump International still stands, but it exists online largely as a laughingstock—a place to which radical liberals flock with the sole mission of sticking up their middle fingers and scrawling obscene notes in chalk…and bragging about it, of course. In online travel groups, comments fly about the “big orange guy’s” evil address, and certain groups make it impossible to discuss the establishment by automatically flagging any post which includes the name “Trump” as harmful or inflammatory.

While the social decline (dare I say demise?) of their flagship hotel is all a bit unfortunate for the Trump empire as a whole, it’s good news for penny-pinching luxury jet-setters such as myself. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself as I took the plunge and booked a week’s stay in one of their Deluxe Park View rooms. After all, the establishment currently boasts five stars from Forbes (the only name-recognition publication willing to feature it).

This is one more star than the over-glorified, gilded Plaza, which holds court over its own impressive address on the opposite side of Central Park. (And which, back in the ’80s, was a Trump property itself.) Though Condé Nast doesn’t go out of its way to sing the Trump’s praises, its readers ranked it as the eighth-best hotel in all of NYC. (For reference, The Plaza weighed in at number twenty-three.)

However, online consumer reviews don’t echo these accolades—at least, not in theory. On Google, users (some of whom have made few to no other contributions to the apps) complain of bedbugs; the hotel’s Yelp page even features a warning that user reviews are being monitored by Yelp’s support team due to “content related to media reports.”

Out of curiosity, I also took a scroll through the “not recommended” reviews on the site and found a wealth of hatred and spite that would’ve made me laugh if not for their obscenity and flat-out foolishness.

That being said, I did carry a slight amount of trepidation along with my purse as I boarded the Cadillac Escalade that the hotel had sent to pick me up at the airport (for no small fee, of course) nearly an hour late after weather delayed my departing flight. Would Trumpian luxury reign supreme, or did the haters have good reason to hate?

My Stay—an Unbiased Opinion

Over an hour late to make that night’s dinner reservation at the hotel and wrung out from a day of departures and delays, I spun my way into the hotel’s private lobby via a gold-framed glass revolving door. I was promptly greeted, despite my tardy arrival time, by a gracious desk clerk who presented me with a lavender-scented towel for my hand and a fresh vanilla macaron from Ladurée, New York’s favorite French pastry shop.

Check-in was fast and friendly, and the receptionist informed me that I’d been given a complimentary upgrade to a high-floor room (fifteen out of seventeen) with views of both Columbus Circle and Central Park. Another member of the staff handed me a bottle of Trump water and showed me to the elevators. Before I knew it, I’d been whisked upstairs to a room of quiet luxury and floor-to-ceiling views of Midtown Manhattan.

As a self-professed germaphobe, I typically Lysol my hotel room liberally upon arrival—but this room was so clean that it left nary a spot on my first antibacterial wipe, so that I barely bothered disinfecting at all. (Was this due to the fact that the establishment is under-visited due to the aforementioned reviews or that its housekeeping service was simply impeccable? I was banking on the latter.)

On the desk lay a welcome note and a box of chocolates; in the mini-fridge was a bottle of wine. And the fridge? Not one of those mini-bars filled with petite bottles of overpriced alcohol that trigger an automatic room charge if one so much as sneezes at them—no, a real refrigerator, complete with a small freezer, and accompanied by a dishwasher, microwave, stovetop, and kitchen sink. I didn’t even have a suite, yet I had a kitchen larger than those in some NYC apartments.

That night, while I enjoyed a truly delectable dinner at Nougatine, the Trump’s “casual” restaurant and a sister to its two Michelin-starred establishment, Jean Georges (where I would, later in the trip, experience one of the best meals of my life), one of the housekeepers transformed my room into a nighttime oasis, complete with water bottles by the bed, chocolate-covered pretzels, and linen rugs on either side of the bed to step onto when getting up in the middle of the night.

The next morning, similar magic happened when I popped back down to Nougatine for breakfast—and the maid didn’t stop at making the bed. No, she organized the pile of cosmetics that I’d left in a jumble on my way out the door for food and put my used water glasses in the dishwasher. It was more a butler service than one from a maid, and it made me feel perfectly pampered.

The food on-site at the establishment was consistently delicious, and the fitness center in the basement was sprawling and well-equipped, containing not only a lap pool and countless exercise machines but also massage guns, bowls of fresh fruit, and an on-demand flavored soda water machine to help with workout recovery. I also indulged in a 90-minute “Diamond Bliss” body scrub, which made me feel like Melania herself (or, at least, a model of somewhat lesser value).

Every day, twice a day, housekeeping continued to keep my room spotless. From the floor-to-ceiling window, I could see nothing but the yellow-and-burnt-orange tops of trees in Central Park and many of the buildings surrounding it, which made up New York’s iconic skyline. Way down at the end of the street stood the Plaza, looking positively puny at its total height of eighteen floors. I ordered room service twice, which was rolled in on a tray with a starched white cloth and plated with as much precision as in any restaurant (although the delivery service fee did veer slightly into the land of the obscene).

I’ll admit—the bathroom was a mite small (clearly designed more for the businessman Trumps than the former-supermodel Trumps), and the bulb in the floor lamp was burnt out. But service was prompt and professional and nothing but friendly. My interactions with the concierge were wonderful to the point of making me feel like minor royalty—no request, not even a table at the Polo Bar, was too much for them. The lobby was serene, quiet, and a sanctuary away from the tourist-crowded streets. And it had a certain odor—not of feces, per some of those inflammatory Yelp reviews, but of an aroma I could only describe as money.

But the day before I checked out, the gilded hotel-and-residence began to feel a bit less palatial and a bit more presidential.

Spending the Night With the Trumps

On the morning of October twenty-seventh, I awoke feeling a strange mixture of emotions that, combined, could only be described as melancholy. I was leaving New York the next afternoon, and my stay at the Trump had been so positively perfect that I could hardly dare to think of leaving.

So, I was determined to live it up—after breakfast, I decided the first thing I’d do would be to ask for the house car. This elusive luxury rig was never in the right place at the right time during my stay. If it had been, I could have gotten a free chauffeured ride anywhere in Midtown. But, alas, another patron always seemed to snatch it out from under me. That didn’t keep me from asking…

…Until it did.

As I noshed on a piece of the most decadent French toast of my life (it tasted as though it had been soaked in pure melted ice cream and topped with caramel poured all the way down from Heaven), a siren screamed past the restaurant window. Not that unusual, considering that the Trump sat on the same city block as a small NYPD precinct office. But then came another, and another, and another, until a complete motorcade was flying past the hotel as fast as NYC traffic would allow.

By the time I made it outside to inquire as to the whereabouts of the house car, the bellmen and doormen were all aflutter. Four little words—spoken swiftly and in hushed tones—circulated around the front steps. “Trump is in town.”

House car?

No, sorry.

Trump was in town.

Call a cab?

No. Roadblocks.

Trump was in town.

He was in town, of course, for his infamous Madison Square Garden rally that night. Donald, along with Melania, Don Jr., J.D. Vance, and the rest of the who’s-who in the Trump family’s upper echelon. Were they staying at the hotel? I wasn’t sure—but I certainly knew that they were in danger of mucking up my plans. (At least it was better than that time Kamala Harris’s arrival in Hawaii kept my plane grounded on the tarmac for over an hour past my flight time.)

So, instead of catching a cab, I walked to my destination, which happened to be only a few blocks from MSG. Somehow—coincidentally or not, I’m still unsure—I found myself fighting a blocks-long line of rallygoers and NYPD officers. The area around Madison Square Garden was filled with MAGA hats and handmade signs (and the occasional protestor yelling passionately—if not very persuasively—into a reporter’s proffered microphone).

For a moment, I felt as if I’d been transported into the past—perhaps to one of those infamous equal-rights marches on Washington—or into the finale of The Manchurian Candidate. Except, instead of radical liberals, I was surrounded by people who shared (perhaps over-shared) my own political ideologies.

Jesse Watters hung out on a street corner, reporters swarmed the area, and all I wanted was to go to Macy’s and buy myself a Christmas ornament. Finally, that evening, ornament in hand and over fifteen miles on my feet from the day’s walking, I returned to my hotel room and did what any other self-respecting resident at the Trump International would do on such an auspicious occasion. I put on my pajamas, ordered room service for dinner, and watched the Trump rally from the comfort of my own room.

The next morning, as I prepared to say farewell to New York City, I set off on a final stroll through Central Park and made plans to return again as soon as I could. As I returned to the hotel to pack, I walked past Donald Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle as a duet of doormen assisted them into a waiting car. But even with the Trumps at hand, one of them (the doormen, that is) stopped to wish me good morning and compliment my new coat.

Because, at the Trump International Hotel, everyone is treated like a Trump.

To be fair, I knew who I would cast my ballot for before I checked in for my stay, but even if I hadn’t already been seeing red, I likely would have changed my mind based on the quality and excellence of service alone. Say what you like about Trump, his arrogance, or his bombastic pomposity, but his hotels (this one, at least) are perfection.