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I visited Donald Trump's state park and it's not a park
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Sep 29, 2020 11:41am |
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| Category | Profile |
| Author | Wilfred Chan |
| News Date | Tuesday, September 29, 2020 05:20:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Last week, I went to Donald J Trump state park, a park few people know exists, because it’s not really a park. In fact, it’s two tracts of muddy, overgrown land between New York’s Putnam and Westchester counties that Trump purchased in 1998 for a total of $2.75m, hoping to build a golf course. Neighborhood officials halted the plan, citing environmental concerns, and the land was abandoned. In an alternate timeline, the story would just end here.
But we’re living in Trump’s universe. In 2006, the reality TV mogul donated the undeveloped land to New York state, claiming it was worth $100m – an amount that, if claimed as a qualified conservation contribution, could have saved him a fortune in income tax, potentially carried forward for years. (Confusingly, Trump’s 2016 campaign valued the land at $26.1m in his public list of charitable contributions.)
Having visited the park, it all feels like a big joke. The site is surprisingly hard to find – beyond a garish sign on the nearby Taconic State Parkway, there are no clear markers to guide potential visitors – as if the state hopes you won’t actually go. It’s not listed on New York Parks’ website, either, although it is labelled as a “passive park” which means it is not maintained and has no amenities. |
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