My Trump Card (or Rather Photograph)

As part of my plan to kick 2017 off on the right foot, I was cleaning up my work space by going through old folders and cleaning out some drawers. One of those was filled with envelopes of pictures I had taken at trade shows and of stores featured in my Retail Spotlight series. I was tossing most of them out when I came across one marked “Duane Reade 7/5/2011.”

I had been invited on that date by management Walgreens’ Duane Reade division to tour their new downtown Manhattan flagship at 40 Wall Street, an historic 71-story skyscraper opened in 1930 as the home of the Manhattan Trust Company, a predecessor of today’s Chase Manhattan Bank.

I scanned through the photos I took of what made this drugstore unique:  the marble fireplace, the brass plated escalators leading up to the shopping floor, the made-on-premises sushi bar, The Juice Market made-to-order juice bar, the walnut-seated shoeshine stand across from the display of Cottonelle toilet paper, the Freestyle Coke Machine, the Carnegie Deli pastrami and corned beef, the Restaurant Row aisle of restaurant-branded mustards and sauces, the electronic stock ticker, the sexy female hologram that served as the store’s concierge—oh, and Donald Trump!

It turned out that Trump had bought 40 Wall Street a few years earlier, rechristening it The Trump Building and redeveloped it into upscale office and residential space. And here he was touring his new marquee retail tenant in an entourage that included his son Donald Jr., and Walgreens and Duane Reade officials. I did not interview him—he kept to a very tight schedule and was only in the store for a few minutes—but I was able to snap a couple of pictures of him strolling down the pain reliever aisle. Even then he looked presidential.

I was glad I kept this old stack of photos and also still have the CD, so I can have more of them printed out and sell them on E-bay. I am even happier to still have my collector’s bottle of Trump brand vodka that I bought years ago when it was on clearance at Park Avenue Liquor Shop. It is “HUGE,” as Mr. Trump would say, measuring in at about two-feet tall. I’m not a big vodka drinker, so I never opened it, saving it for that special occasion. I am tempted to open it on Inauguration Day on Friday to toast our new President, but I think it will have greater collector—and resale—value if it remains untouched.              

The moral of this story: never throw ANYTHING away! It may someday be worth something.