Donald Trump & John Gotti: Two Crime Bosses.

Netflix is running a great documentary on John Gotti and how he was finally brought down by the FBI and a New York State task force in 1992. I was living in New York during all the years that Gotti was head of the Gambino crime family, and I particularly remember the night he organized the 1985 assassination of Paul Castellano in front of the Sparks Restaurant because I often ate at that steak joint which was around the corner from my office.

As I was watching the movie for the second time, all of a sudden it hit me that with a few changes in the script and maybe lots more talk about violence than actual violent events, someone could make a very similar movie about Donald Trump who became a big shot and media celebrity at the same time that Gotti was becoming a media fixture in New York.

Gotti and Trump both got into business in New York City in the early 1980’s, with Gotti as a capo in the Gambino crime family operating out of a clubhouse in Little Italy and Trump buying and renovating the old Commodore Hotel which then became the Grand Hyatt in 1980, followed by the opening of the Trump Tower in 1983.

Trump and Gotti started making headlines in New York City media when the city, under Mayor Ed Koch, began to recover from the near-bankruptcy of the mid-1970’s and now once again the Big Apple was the place to be…