Dude…This is the most Trump thing I’ve ever read.

Trump agreed to donate (the sculptures) to the Met as long as the costs and the ability to physically remove the Art Deco artifacts were not unreasonably expensive.

Trump surprised New York’s art community on June 5, 1980 when a demolition crew jackhammered the sculptures off of the building. In addition, the intricate grillwork was removed. The destruction drew a public outcry. The Met received no advance notice.

Trump initially avoided any comment about the Bonwit Teller artwork. But John Baron, a spokesperson with the Trump Organization, contacted the New York Daily News to discuss the situation. Baron informed the Daily News that “the merit of the stones was not great enough to justify the effort to save them.” Baron stated that the removal process could have set back Trump Tower’s construction timeline by two weeks. Baron also told the New York Times that he had no idea what happened to the ornate grillwork.

Long after Baron’s initial contact, the New York Daily News learned that John Baron was actually Donald Trump, in disguise.

Board and staff members at the Met were furious and confused about Baron’s claims that the sculptures lacked merit. “Can you imagine the Met accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?” asked Ashton Hawkins, a Met board member.

The day after “Baron” called the Daily News, Donald Trump released a statement, claiming that the sculptures had to be reduced to stones. “My biggest concern was the safety of people on the street below…people could have been killed. To me, it would not have been worth that kind of risk.”

Though Trump claimed that the removal of the sculptures would have cost his organization approximately $500,000, an initial estimate, made public, amounted to a $32,000 expense.