High End Stores Near Trump Tower in Midtown Thrilled that Fortress-Like Security Apparatus Has Been Taken Down

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Now that former President Trump has left the White House for his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, New Yorkers who want to navigate midtown Manhattan can do so with an ease in restrictions. For the last four years, the block of East 56th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues had been closed to vehicular traffic because of security purposes but now things have reverted back to what they were prior to the 2016 presidential race.

According to a New York Post report, the people who are most thrilled by this development are the owners of an office building that isn’t even open yet.

For the last four and a half years, vehicular traffic has been banned from the block. According to the Post report, people strolling down the fashionable street where Trump Tower stands as an imposing figure have been faced with “fortress-like zone of steel and concrete barricades, NYPD and Secret Service sheds, and tank-size security trucks.”

The Post reported that now that Trump is no longer residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the NYPD re-opened the block last week. This comes as a breath of fresh air to such high-end stores like Giorgio Armani, Armani Ristorante and Oxxford Clothes, each of whom are located at 717 Fifth Avenue.

Because of the barricades and security structures, the flow of pedestrian traffic had been curtailed and business was steadily decreasing.  An Oxxford manager who wished to remain anonymous told the Post that the situation around Trump Tower was “miserable.” The Post also reported that Trump Tower was also referred to as the “Black House” by employees of Armani Restaurant because of the substantial loss in business that they sustained.

A source told the Post that the restaurant that caters to an affluent crowd lost 50 percent of its business immediately after the 2016 street shutdown. The source revealed to the Post that, “many clients came by car or limousine and they couldn’t get here. We struggled after that to bring at least some of our business back.”

Other happy campers or business owners are the owners of 550 Madison Avenue between East 55th and 56th streets, the vacant former Sony headquarters that Olayan America is spending $300 million to redesign, according to the Post report.

Olayan Group managing director and head of US real estate, Erik Horvat told the Post that the intense security apparatus around Trump Tower “changed the dynamic and the vibe to see the whole street on guard.”

Horvat added, “It’s not a political statement to say that until November, nobody even knew if the street would be closed for four years more.”

Horvat added that the barricades, along with security guards carrying machine guns were “inconsistent” with the health-conscious image the building wanted to project, according to the Post report.