Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been widely criticized for bragging, after the collapse of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, that his building at 40 Wall Street was now the tallest skyscraper in lower Manhattan.
Not only was Trump’s boast despicable, coming as it did just hours after nearly 3,000 people lost their lives ― it was also a lie, according to architectural reports reviewed by The Huffington Post.
Trump’s building at 40 Wall Street did not become the tallest building in lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, as Trump claimed in a radio interview with WWOR on the afternoon of the attacks.
Immediately after 9/11, 70 Pine Street, which soars 952 feet into the air, became the tallest building in the area, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, an academic and industry working group.
You can see it’s noticeably taller than the green-roofed Trump Building in the photo below:
The Trump Building, 40 Wall Street, is 927 feet tall, or 25 feet shorter than 70 Pine.
A spokeswoman for Trump’s presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Commercial real estate professionals carefully watch skyscraper heights, and ever since the 1930s, there’s been a global competition to build the world’s tallest structure.
Given how competitive the Republican nominee is about everything else, it’s difficult to imagine he would have simply forgotten about 70 Pine Street, just a block from his own building.
“40 Wall Street actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest,” Trump said in the radio interview on 9/11.
Trump has a reputation for stretching the truth that has dogged him for much of his career and during his foray into politics. Trump has called it “truthful hyperbole,” but most people call it lying.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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