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Donald Trump. ‘The Donald’. ‘You’re Fired!’

The list goes on and on.

Yet, the questions remain: (1) Who is The Real Donald Trump? And, (2) Where is he hiding?

I don’t have enough information to delve into Q1 (at this time).

I thought for sure I had the answer to Q2! It seemed to be a ‘gimme’ – he’s likely hiding somewhere in Donald J. Trump State Park! Summertime. Great weather. What a great place to ‘hide in plain sight!’

Driving north out of NYC on the Taconic State Parkway, you will see the sign announcing the DJT State Park just before mile-marker 16. The sign was erected in 2006 at the twilight of George Pataki’s final term as NYS Governor after The Donald donated some 436 acres of vacant land in the towns of Yorktown and Putnam Valley to the state of New York to be used as a park.

Turns out that the Park never quite got started (or finished), quite similar to several other projects The Donald announced with great fanfare and plenty of publicity.

Unfortunately, the park didn’t exist in 2006, and it doesn’t exist now — unless you view 436 acres of inaccessible wildland inhabited by deer, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, coyotes and other brethren of the forest – as a park. (It has been said that The Donald is particularly fond of snakes.)

Now, please understand – The Walrus is all in favor of open space. In fact, if The Donald had donated this property to NYS as Open Space, I might have a somewhat more favorable impression of him and his character.

Trump had assembled this land in the early 1990’s with the expectation he would create one or more private golf clubs. His cost of acquisition was somewhere in the $2 Million range. After being rebuffed by several government entities on the potential negative environmental impacts of shoe-horning private golf facilities into wetlands, wildlands and woodlands, in 2002 Trump – with great fanfare – declared that he was “fed up with” governmental delays and overreach. He stopped the application process for the golf course; and began marketing the property as a potential site for luxury housing.

By 2006, it was apparently clear that the property was: (a) over-priced, or (b) not suitable for development, or (c) all of the above.

So, instead of selling the property, which he valued at $100 million, Trump decided to donate it to the state of New York to be used as a park.

The bad news: the cost of converting these 400+ acres of wilderness into a state park, maintaining it and staffing it was beyond the realm of comprehension.

In 2010, the state announced that it would close this and 57 other park and historic sites due to budget constraints. As they said from Albany, “Mr. Trump did not give an endowment to improve the park.”

Trump’s reaction was fast and furious: “If they’re going to close it, I’ll take the land back. This was very valuable property. I gave it away at the height of the market for the purposes of a park, and I always believed that once a park is there, it would always be a park.”

Meanwhile, we’ve determined that The Donald isn’t hiding in Donald J. Trump State Park, because there really is no such place which is accessible by motor vehicle, only on foot or by helicopter.

And, we’ve been able to determine that The Donald is not hiding at his daughter Ivanka’s estate.

Apparently The Donald’s quip on national television a few years back left some people feeling a bit squeamish: “… she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

Yikes!

We’ll keep searching for The Real Donald and where he is hiding, so please feel welcome to send any tips or leads to The Walrus!