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Pro-Palestinian Protesters Flood Trump Tower
This article originally appeared in The City.
By Gwynne Hogan
NEW YORK - Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters overtook Trump Tower Thursday morning, staging a sit-in in the central atrium for over an hour in a a colorful and chaotic scene in the iconic location where Donald Trump famously descended a golden elevator to announce he was running for pr, esident in 2015.
With Trump now beginning his second term, the group there under the banner of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace moved into the space to call for an end to the war in Gaza and the release of detained Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil by federal authorities for his role in campus protests dedicated to the same cause.
Patrons and workers looked on in confusion as waves of people entered the lobby at around 11:40 a.m. unfurling banners and sitting down in the subterranean cafeteria area, chanting “Release Mahmoud Khalil now!” as diners at the Trump Grill hastily picked up their belongings and moved to a table deeper inside the restaurant.
Police briefly locked down Trump Tower, clearing the building of some employees and would-be spectators, while the demonstrators, who chanted over the building’s blaring soundtrack of the Beatles, Blues Traveler, and Billy Joel, were warned repeatedly they’d be arrested if they didn’t disperse.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Khalil at his university housing over the weekend. He is being detained in Louisiana while his attorneys fight for his release, and return to New York.
"They all need to go find a job and work,” said one miffed chef at Trump Grill as she looked on. She declined to give her name. “They're disrupting our lives.”
James Schamus, a Columbia film professor who was among the demonstrators, said he hoped to inspire others to action.
“You can do something in the face of the state terror that is coming after all of us and to object as strongly and as principled terms as you can, to the smokescreen use of the supposed safety of us Jews to go after our basic human rights here in the United States and all over the world,” he said.
Khalil, who became a key spokesperson and mediator last spring for the Pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University, has not been charged with any crime.
Trump administration officials say they have revoked his green card under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that applies to people who present “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” — a move that the demonstrators see as a blatant attempt to stifle constitutionally protected free speech.
Trump impersonator Neil Greenfield, who works just outside the building selling photo ops and came in to watch it, said he thought Khalil should be deported.
“He did start a ruckus. He definitely gave out pro-Hamas stuff,” he said, reiterating a suggestion the Trump administration has made about Khalil.
“And he's not a citizen,” added Greenfield, who noted that he himself is Jewish and said he was offended by the stance taken by the Jews protesting there. “I don't know how anybody could appreciate anything that the protesters are doing, even though it's not illegal, after October 7th.”
Jay Saper, an activist with JVP, said the group came to denounce Trump for “platforming Nazis within his administration while claiming to take action against anti-Semitism.”
“We're here to say get our names out of your mouth,” Saper said. “This is not about anti-Semitism. This is about chilling a movement, chilling dissent.”
The atrium of Trump Tower, which is a privately owned public space, is required under city rules to be open to anyone who walks in during its business hours. It houses establishments such as Trump Grill, Trump Cafe, Trump Sweets, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and multiple gift shops boosting Trump paraphernalia, luring supporters of the president from far and wide.
“I did find it a bit disturbing at first,” said a British tourist, who was visiting the United States for the first time and declined to give her name. She added, “everyone was very kind."
Dozens of demonstrators were put in zip ties and arrested by the NYPD, after repeated warnings they’d be arrested if they didn’t disperse. An NYPD source said that 98 people were arrested. Chief of Department John Chell told the New York Post they’d been charged with trespassing, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.
Police shuffled out the last demonstrator at around 1:15 p.m., nearly two afters after the protest began. Once the dust had settled, staff at the Trump Cafe passed out slices of pizza to building workers.
“They [were] very deceptive,” one employee in a MAGA hat told another, adding he had seen a large group of people congregating but thought they were with a tour group. “It was a sight to see.”
By 2 p.m. security had reopened the building to the public.
One khaki-clad young man strode down the marble-floored hallway with a group of friends, saying, “I can’t believe we made it to Trump Tower.”
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