large section of the plaza around Trump International Hotel and Tower is also closed without explanation. (Nathan Tempey/Gothamist)

Trump management replaced the bench in July, but when Gothamist visited last week, a sign indicated that the fourth-floor terrace was "CLOSED DUE TO CONSTRUCTION." A Buildings Department spokesman said the agency has no permits on file for work involving the terrace.

Across 56th Street, the airy POPS arcade at 550 Madison Avenue is also closed on the Trump-Tower facing end as part of the police-Secret Service freeze of the street. "Send your letters [of complaint] to Donald J. Trump," said one of two vest-and-tie-wearing workers monitoring the roped-off-entrance.

Over at Columbus Circle's Trump-managed Trump International Hotel and Tower, scene of the president-elect's frog-legs summit with Mitt Romney, the vibe is also military,subsequent battles to reopen it, may hold lessons for Midtown residents and businesspeople in the era of Trump.



The aftermath of the 1920 bombing of Wall Street, which killed 38 and seriously injured 143. (Public domain)

To be sure, terrorism and related precautions are nothing new in New York. In 1920, a bomb left in a horse-drawn carriage on Wall Street, tentatively attributed to Italian anarchists, killed 38 people. And in the late 1960s and 1970s, radicals' bombs became a feature of everyday life in New York—271 went off in the city during a 28-month period between 1968 and early 1970 alone, and the 1975 Fraunces Tavern and the LaGuardia Airport bombings killed 15 altogether.

Compelled by the militant blasts rocking the city during this period to do something, anything, corporate