Will Irish eyes be smiling on St. Patrick’s Day 2017? It’s unlikely around 56th Street and Fifth Avenue at Trump Tower, the building they're already calling the White House North which is now a massive security zone. Incoming First Lady Melania Trump’s announcement that she will remain in New York City instead of moving with her husband to the White House may cause major problems for parade marchers, especially if her husband is in town on St. Patrick’s Day.
MarchAgeddon Friday, March 17, 2017 some are calling it.
Yes, you’ve got it. The Trumps live right in the heart of the St. Pat’s Parade. And now that their lives and fortunes have changed dramatically they could seriously impact the route and length of the 2017 Saint Patrick’s Day march, which takes place this year on the busiest day of the week, a Friday.
Trump Tower security: a 'Big Apple' headache https://t.co/eMIXJ1jCgU pic.twitter.com/00RKTqluKI
— news (@angchir) November 27, 2016
Trump Tower, the 58-story skyscraper where Melania will continue to reside with her son Barron, is located on 56th Street, right in the heart of the traditional St. Pat’s parade route.
Fears that the St. Pat’s Parade – which can take half a day to complete – will be drastically slowed because of anti-terrorist crash barriers and massive security are now coming center stage. It’ll be the Aran sweater brigade versus the 'House of Cards.'
New Yorkers blast security screening outside Trump Tower https://t.co/RJiDgMUrrd pic.twitter.com/sWjOebhW6Y
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) November 23, 2016
To compound matters, this week it was announced that the Secret Service is considering renting an entire floor of Trump Tower, turning it into a top security fortress at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $1 million a day.
That means it won’t just be street traffic. All overhead flights will have to be re-routed and all the nearby Subways (hello Rockefeller Center) will have to be fortified and attack-proofed.
Insiders say good luck getting to the St. Pat’s parade next year if you don’t set out hours before it steps off.
Considering that she’s about to become First Lady, it’s remarkable how little we see or know about Melania. After her Republican National Convention speech, where her admiration for Michelle Obama went entirely too far, we didn’t see much of her for months.
This lower profile period began immediately after the convention, unsurprisingly. But soon claims that she had worked here as an illegal alien in the 1990’s sent her further underground, claims that were hotly disputed by the Trump campaign, who said they would shortly release documents that disproved these terrible allegations.
The documents were never produced and Melania has rarely emerged since.
As long as Melania remains here security experts warn that parts of Fifth Avenue will remain effectively closed from now.
And it gets worse. Donald is said to much prefer his own 58th-floor tower apartment, which is decorated in 24-karat gold and marble in the Louis XIV style, to the austere atmosphere of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave – guaranteeing further disruption.
So the writing is on the wall for the local shops and parades. There will be security and traffic problems, massive ones, come St. Patrick’s Day 2017.
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