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By the 1980s, mall magnate Alfred Taubman had amassed a fortune. He had homes in Michigan, New York and London, and was schmoozing with headline-grabbers like Donald Trump and A-listers in arts, entertainment and business.
Early that decade, a business dealing with Trump involved an amusing exchange, according to papers Taubman donated to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Deadline Detroit reviewed the documents.
The exchange provides a little slice of history, a look into one of the Detroit area's most successful businessmen and his relationship with Trump 34 years before he was elected president. Taubman died of a heart attack in 2015 at age 91 at his home in Bloomfield Hills.
"The deal you are recommending to Hattie [Belkin] is a little too tough," Donald Trump told Al Taubman in 1982. (Taubman photo by Michelle Andonian)
In the summer of 1982, Taubman, then 58, was helping local fashion entrepreneur Hattie Belkin negotiate a lease for a 3,000-square-foot store in Trump Tower in Manhattan. Belkin already had "Hattie" boutiques at 555 Woodward in Birmingham, in Palm Beach, Fla., and other clothing shops in swanky addresses around the country.
In a 1981 venture with Taubman, she opened an Yves Saint Laurent boutique in Taubman's shopping center in Short Hills, N.J. That same year, she opened a Gucci shop in Somerset Mall in Troy.
"She's a competent businesswoman, a good merchant and she's done a fine job in a short time," Taubman told the Detroit Free Press in January 1982. "She has an excellent eye for fashion-worthy merchandise."
A retail leasing master
Hattie Belkin
In an Aug. 18, 1982 letter to the 36-year-old Trump, Taubman began:
“It was good seeing you in Southampton last weekend. Subsequent to our meeting, I met with Hattie Belkin to relate our conversation regarding Trump Tower...She has done a pro forma and budget and believes that the maximum rental rent she would be able to pay would be approximately $22,000 per month for a term of 15 to 20 years."
He added: “Donald, if you wish to proceed further, what I would suggest is that you come to Detroit, see Hattie’s operation here in Detroit, and perhaps even fly to Palm Beach and see her Palm Beach operation.”
There's no indication whether Taubman had a financial stake in the proposed Trump Tower shop or whether he was just helping as a friend or business associate who knew Trump and was a retail leasing master.
Nearly two weeks later, in an Aug. 30 follow-up letter to Trump, Taubman included details of the proposal and wrote:
“It was kind of you to find time on such short notice to meet Hattie Belkin and myself regarding Trump Tower. . . . I will await your reply and look forward to seeing you and Ivana at your home next Sunday evening.”
Al Taubman, a major UM donor, spoke at its 1991 commencement. (Bentley Historical Library photo)
A week later, Trump delivered a backhanded compliment in a letter:
“Dear Big Al:
“Your letter of August 30 has touched my heart. While few people would agree with me, I truly think you are adorable – but nevertheless, the deal you are recommending to Hattie is a little too tough.”
He went on to talk about an alternative deal at the Trump Tower. At the end, Trump wrote:
"On another subject, your party was the best -- it could not have been a more wonderful evening. Everyone had a great time."
The deal never came to fruition, though it's not clear why. After Trump's last letter, there were no more correspondences included in the file.
A Taubman Company spokesperson on Thursday said she couldn't immediately come up with an explanation as to why the deal didn't come through. One person interviewed by Deadline Detroit said they couldn't remember for sure, but speculated that Belkin may have had second thoughts about entering the New York market. She never did.
Belkin closed her Hattie shops in 1989 and went to other ventures. She died in 2014 of cancer at age 74.
Among Taubman's papers at the U-M library are two thin files -- one for the Hattie Belkin proposal and another for newspaper clippings on Trump and other miscellaneous papers.
There’s no indication from the Taubman files that Trump got involved with Taubman on any projects of note, but they suggest the Taubman Company had an interest in Trump's affairs.
'Gaudy, Impatient'
One news clip is a New York Times article from Jan. 31, 1988 headlined: “Trump: Symbol of a Gaudy, Impatient Time.”
A memo on Taubman Company stationary from Christopher J. Tennyson -- addressed to company executives, including Taubman and his son Robert -- accompanies the article:
“Attached is a profile of Donald Trump by Paul Goldberger, architecture editor of The New York Times. Not only is it negative for Mr. Trump, it is negative for private developers in general.”
The article, in part, reads:
Not since the first William Zeckendorf rose to prominence in the 1950's has a real-estate developer loomed so large in the public mind as Donald Trump. Part of this, of course, is Mr. Trump's propensity for naming his projects after himself - there is Trump Tower, Trump Plaza, Trump Parc, as well as Trump's Castle and Trump Plaza in Atlantic City - but a great deal of it is the manner in which Mr. Trump has positioned himself as a symbol of the values of this age.
He is tailor-made for a time in which aggressive private developers have taken over many of the functions of the public sector, a time when the very idea of the public realm has been put aside, when greed and power are celebrated and selfishness triumphs over the commonweal. Mr. Trump builds housing for the rich and gambling casinos for the middle class, and he has succeeded quite brilliantly at forging a connection in the public mind between his name and the idea of money…
In actuality, Mr. Trump is not, as real-estate developers go, all that significant. He has not built nearly as much as many of his colleagues, and as an architectural client his record ranges from middling to far worse.
