Timothy L. O’Brien: “All the work that the rest of us are doing about Trump is built on the shoulders of the work that Wayne Barrett did.”
The above quote is taken from a new book about the history of the Village Voice, “The Freaks Came Out To Write: The Definitive History Of The Village Voice, The Radical Paper That Changed American Culture” by Tricia Romano.
In 1978, Wayne Barrett was a then 32 year old freelance writer, taking advice from Jack Newfield on whom to write about who could encapsulate real estate money and politics and power in New York. Jack told him, “You should check out this young guy, Donald Trump”.
Trump was building the Grand Hyatt, his first big project in Manhattan.
Tom Robbins: “[Newfield] He believed that there were all these characters who had nothing to do with getting elected or unelected but who stayed in power in the city, regardless. He spotted Donald Trump right away as a budding member of that tribe.”
I don’t want to skirt fair use but in the book, Barrett recounts how, as he was doing research in the city archives, he received a call from Trump (before cell phones, kids)
Wayne Barrett: I didn’t know whether to pick it up or not. “Wayne! It’s Donald! I hear you’re doing a story on me!” I’d never talked to the guy in my life. When he found out I lived in the battered Brownsville section of Brooklyn, he called to say, “I could get you an apartment, you know. That must be an awfully rough neighborhood”.
So, Trump’s tendency for transactional relationships was baked in at an early age.
Barrett also hilariously met with Trump’s then lawyer, Roy Cohn.
Wayne Barrett kept writing for the Village Voice or assisting other writers up until his untimely death from Lung Cancer (he was a non-smoker) in 2017, the night before Trump’s inauguration. He also wrote a biography on Rudy Giuliani. His book on Trump was reissued in 2016.
Thanks to the Village Voice archives, we’re able to read the first article they printed on Trump in Jan. 1979.