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Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York. He grew up in Jamaica Estates, Queens, and attended Kew-Forest School kindergarten through the 7th grade. In 2017, his birthplace and childhood home where he was raised until he was 14  at 85-15 Wareham Place was sold for $2.14…

Frederick Trump, the oldest son (1905-1995) was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Fredrick Trump and Elizabeth Christ Trump. He grew up in Woodhaven, Queens, where he graduated from Richmond Hill High School. In 1936, he married Mary Anne MacLeod, a Scottish immigrant, and settled in Jamaica Estates, Queens, where they raised…

Frederick Trump, the grandfather, began the family tradition of putting lipstick on a pig.  He was born Friedrich Trumpf (1869 –1918) in Kallstadt, Kingdom of Bavaria.  He took shortcuts that came back to haunt him.  He left Bavaria without properly notifying the authorities and dodged military service when he left at age 16 in 1885…

Donald Trump’s family name is quite appropriate.  It is a surname of  German origin, from the German word for “drum”, “drumf”.  The one thing the Trump family knows is how to beat its own drum! It is unclear when his grandfather, Frederick Trump I, dropped the “f” from the family name and changed the “d” to…

Donald Trump leveraged his family’s real estate fortune into becoming the president of the United States.  His grandfather, an immigrant from Germany, set up a barbershop on Wall Street and began investing in NYC real estate after making a fortune mining the miners of the Yukon Gold Rush by setting up restaurants and hotels.  His…

On Sunday, 27 January 2019, I visited the NYC Transit Museum, located inside a former NYC subway station the corner of  99 Schermerhorn Street and Boreum Place.  The station was decommissioned after World War II because the platform was not long enough to accommodate longer trains and in addition there were other subway stations nearby….

On Saturday, 26 January 2019,  I had a most wonderful experience when I visited The National Museum of Mathematics or MoMath, a museum dedicated to mathematics in Manhattan, New York City.  I had struggled with math in high school and avoided the subject in college and graduate school.  I had to be tutored in algebra…

Over the years, the weather has been pretty favorable, given this is beginning of the winter season. Whatever the state of the weather is this year, it has to be better than last year’s record low of 9 degrees Fahrenheit last New Year’s Eve.  The temperatures will be more pleasant, probably in the forties or…

Thousands travel to New York City every year on New Year’s Eve to watch the ball drop in Times Square. But if large crowds and noisemakers aren’t your ideas of fun, you can still partake in something truly New York: walking across the Brooklyn Bridge on New Year’s Eve. Here are some tips to make your walk…

The bridge is very safe.  Because it the greatest possible target for terrorists, it has the best surveillance. The crime rate in New York City has declined, over the decades.  New York City is generally safe if you use your street smarts. “That means not flashing expensive jewelry, watches, and cameras in public, crowded places. It…

A customer asks, “Is it possible to drink champagne on the Brooklyn Bridge? New York State law bans drinking in public.  Alcohol should be in a brown paper bag in order to be discreet. I doubt that the police will enforce the drinking laws on such a holiday because too many people will be drinking…

At this point, late in the evening, most places will be closed.  McDonald’s at 160 Broadway, where we meet, is the best location. A few restaurants may have facilities open for supposed customers. Hotels by law must offer their facilities if you can find one.  Unfortunately, any toilet facilities, within the NYC subway system at…