Wollman Rink in New York's Central Park. New York City will terminate business contracts with The Trump Organisation. Photo / AP
The mayor said the city would cancel contracts with the Trump Organisation for two ice rinks, the Central Park Carousel and the Trump Golf Links in the Bronx.
For the last several years, the tumultuous arc of President Donald Trump's relationship with New York City has been on a steep decline.
His name was stripped from private properties. Part of his re-election campaign focused on characterising New York as an "anarchist jurisdiction." He even changed his legal residency to Florida.
Then on Wednesday, the city announced it would terminate its contracts with the Trump Organisation after the riot at the US Capitol.
The decision by Mayor Bill de Blasio was another blow to Trump's prestige in New York, and hammered home the depths to which the president — once viewed as a mischievous real estate celebrity — has become a political and social pariah in his hometown.
De Blasio said he was severing ties with the Trump Organisation because Trump had incited violence at the Capitol.
"Inciting an insurrection against the US government clearly constitutes criminal activity," de Blasio said in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday. "The City of New York will no longer have anything to do with the Trump Organisation."
The city is moving to cancel contracts at two ice-skating rinks at Central Park, the Central Park Carousel and the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, a city-owned golf course in the Bronx. The Trump Organisation has had profits of about US$17 million ($23 million) a year from the contracts, de Blasio said.
While the city has considered cancelling the contracts before, de Blasio said the violence in Washington qualified as criminal activity under which New York City had the right to sever ties with a company.
De Blasio, a Democrat with roughly a year left in office, said he expected the Trump Organisation to challenge the city's decision in court.
"We're on strong legal ground," the mayor said.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organisation, Amanda Miller, vowed to fight the decision.
"The City of New York has no legal right to end our contracts and if they elect to proceed, they will owe the Trump Organization over US$30 million," she said in a statement. "This is nothing more than political discrimination, an attempt to infringe on the First Amendment and we plan to fight vigorously."
Many companies and institutions have moved to cut ties with the president and his family after the riot, including the 2022 PGA Championship, which will no longer be held at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Trump's name had already been stripped from private properties, including the Trump SoHo hotel, now the Dominick, and some former Trump Place condominiums in Manhattan.
The Trump Organisation operates Wollman Rink, near Central Park's southern edge, and Lasker Rink, in the northern end of the park. Both contracts were set to expire in April.
De Blasio's office said it was notifying the Trump Organisation that the city was starting the process of cancelling the agreements. The cancellation for the carousel, which is currently closed, would take effect in 25 days; the skating rinks would take effect in 30 days, city officials said. The golf course contract is more complex and could take several months to void.
De Blasio said on Wednesday that the city's deal for the golf course with the Trump Organisation "never should have been made in the first place." He said the city planned to find new vendors for the sites.
De Blasio first proposed severing the city's ties with the company in 2015, when Trump made comments disparaging Latinos. But some legal experts argued then that voiding the contracts would not hold up in court.
The agreements contain language that forbids "arbitrary" or "capricious" reasons for cancellation if the decision appeared to be motivated simply by personal animus toward the president.
Mark Levine, a Democratic city councilman from Manhattan who has long supported cutting ties with the Trump Organization, celebrated the news.
"This is a welcome and long (years!) overdue step," he wrote on Twitter.
Written by: Emma G. Fitzsimmons
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