A Small but Interesting Irony

By DEAN DEXTER

New Hampshire was well represented on December 30, 1952 when legislative leaders met with President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower to map out legislative strategy for the new Republican-controlled congress and administration. The meeting took place at Ike’s headquarters in New York City’s Commodore Hotel, near Grand Central Station. In a small but interesting irony of history, the hotel would later be purchased by a 30 year-old real estate entrepreneur named Donald J. Trump, who himself would bear the title “President-elect” 64 years later. Trump tore down the historic, but fading edifice in 1974 and replaced it with today’s Grand Hyatt, the first major deal of his career.

Pictured with Eisenhower are Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Attorney General-Designate Herbert Brownell of New York, Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, who became Senate  President Pro-Tempore, Senate Majority Leader to-be Robert Taft of Ohio, New Hampshire Governor Sherman Adams (who became Eisenhower’s White House Chief of Staff, and later built the Loon Mountain ski resort in Lincoln, NH), Senator Milton Young of North Dakota, and New York lawyer Thomas E. Stephens, later a White House aide and confidante. (Photo courtesy, Senator Styles Bridges Collection, New Hampshire State Archives)