Trump taste for exaggeration begins at home

Aug 13, 2016

The Republican nominee's company headquarters, campaign nerve center and Versailles-style, marble New York home are all bound together under one roof in Trump Tower on one of the flashiest stretches of Fifth Avenue.

Castigated in politics for playing fast and loose with the facts, if not lying, Donald Trump's taste for exaggeration begins at home.

The Republican nominee's company headquarters, campaign nerve center and Versailles-style, marble New York home are all bound together under one roof in Trump Tower on one of the flashiest stretches of Fifth Avenue.

However the building's height was thrust under the microscope on Wednesday when a 19-year-old fan scaled the outside with suction cups, dodging police until he was captured on the 21st floor.

Or was it?

The Trump Organization says the building has 68 stories -- the first 26 are for offices while 30 through 68 contain residences for "public figures, athletes, celebrities and other affluent sophisticates."

But the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), which keeps a database, says Trump Tower has 58 floors.

CTBUH media associate Benjamin Mandel said Trump's count appeared to have been exaggerated "by about 10 floors" and that the Council's own assessment corresponded to data submitted to New York's department of buildings.

The discrepancy appears to lie in the relatively common practice of misnumbering floors -- for example omitting the 13th to comfort the superstitious or counting extra stories to compensate for imposing atriums.

"Floor counts are a notoriously unreliable way of determining the overall height of a building, as the individual heights of floors can vary both within and between buildings," Mandel told AFP in an email.

"Developers will exaggerate floor counts to make their buildings seem taller than they really appear," he added.

According to CTBUH, the building is 664 feet (202 meters) tall -- a measurement not listed on The Trump Organization website.

Trump has never been bashful about his floor numbering trick.

"It was all approved," he told The New York Times in 2003 in remarks published under the headline "For Tower Residents, a New Math."

"I brought it before the various agencies and got them to agree that I could start the building at Floor 30, because it equated to approximately 300 feet above ground," the tycoon told the newspaper.

"People are very happy," Trump said. "They like to have apartments that have height, the psychology of it."

Trump Tower was not immediately reachable for comment Friday.

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