The last sign bearing the Trump family name was taken off of his former SoHo hotel early Thursday morning – ending the family’s control over the building.
Trump SoHo, on Spring Street in Manhattan, has been renamed The Dominick Hotel after the street at its rear.
The decision to rebrand follows a string of properties in Toronto and Panama that are shaking the name because of the former real-estate mogul’s rise in politics.
And though the Trump Organization cut ties with the property in late November, the building’s past will likely play a role in coming investigations into the President’s ties with Russia.
The last sign bearing the Trump family name was taken off of his former SoHo hotel early Thursday morning – ending the family’s control over the building. Trump SoHo, on Spring Street in Manhattan, has been renamed the Dominick Hotel after the street at it’s rear
And though the Trump Organization cut ties with the property in late November, the building’s past will likely play a role in coming investigations into the President’s ties with Russia. He is pictured on Wednesday after the Tax Bill was passed in the House
The organization initially relinquished control of the hotel because clients were starting to look elsewhere, not wanting to stay there because of its connection with the tumultuous president.
‘Everything Trump was basically taken off today, even our Wi-Fi,’ Kevin Sinnot, a 28-year-old hotel guest from Australia told the New York Daily News.
He said he was able to book a room for he and his fiancee at a discount because of low demand.
But regardless he said he’s glad the name was changed. ‘You don’t like telling your mates you stayed at the Trump,’ he told the Daily News.
The building has a significant history with the now president as the former ‘The Apprentice’ filming location.
Many of Trump’s properties have suffered from the president’s political viewpoints – but none more than Trump SoHo.
It drew international attention earlier this year due to alleged money laundering ties from Russian and Kazakh oligarchs.
In 2007 the hotel’s construction was put on hold because one of Trump’s partners in the project, Felix Sater, who worked for the Bayrock Development group, was revealed, stirring controversy.
Many of Trump’s properties have suffered from the president’s political viewpoints – but none more than Trump SoHo. It drew international attention earlier this year due to alleged money laundering ties from Russian and Kazakh oligarchs
Bayrock, who lived in Brooklyn and was born in Russia, was a contentious partner because he previously served jail time for stabbing a man with a margarita glass in the 1990s. He also at one point avoided prison for a stock scam by becoming a government witness.
According to financial records, Bayrock received millions for the Trump SoHo deal from an Icelandic Bank that many Russian elites use to get their money out of the country. Additionally, companies linked to Kazakh oligarchs Viktor Krapunov and Mukhtar Ablyazov bought apartments worth more than $3million in the building.
Krahpunov and Ablyazov claim they are being politically persecuted after being convicted in Kazakhstan of embezzling billions of dollars from a state bank in property and ventures around the world.
An ongoing federal court case filed by the country in Manhattan accuses them of putting $40million into New York projects.
Felix Sater is cooperating with an international money laundering probe against Kazakhstan – according to the Financial Times.
He will also reportedly be interviewed by Congress about his alleged ties to the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Emails from late 2015 between Sater and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen speak about a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow. These emails, first reported by the New York Times, were exchanged during the presidential primary campaign.
In the emails Sater tells Cohen ‘get putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.’
He also wrote: ‘Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it.’
A letter of intent was signed for the Trump Moscow Project , but the Trump Orgation didn’t move forward with plans, according to Cohen.
He said Sater was ‘prone to salesmanship.’
Trump SoHo has also been the subject of lawsuits from condo buyers who said Ivanka Trump misled them when she told media in 2008 that 60 percent of hte united had been sold.
In reality only 15 percent of the building’s units had been sold.
The case ended in a settlement and a criminal probe was opened into Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr over their mmisleading statements.
Manhattan DIstrict Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr ended up dropping the case after he was visited by the Trump family attorney Marc Kasowitz in 2012.
Vance said he didn’t have enough evidence to pursue charges against the siblings and denied any wrongdoing in his decision to drop it.
But he also returned a $31,000 donation from Kasowitz after his involvement in the case was revealed.