After years of operating under the same name, the 'Trump SoHo' is no longer.
WNYC was one of the first to report a decision in November to remove the branding from the Lower Manhattan hotel after a decline in patrons and interest following the 2016 election.
Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold stayed at the hotel Tuesday for its last night with the Trump name. He said the difference was stark between what the hotel was -- a glamorous hot spot that was, for several years, a success for the Trump family -- and what it is now.
“Nobody knows,” one employee told me when I asked him the name of the hotel we were in. “That’s the name. It’s the Nobody Knows Hotel.” https://t.co/jgCNKfSWDA
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) December 20, 2017
"After President Trump started running for office, and especially after he won, you saw the kind of core constituencies of that place turn against them," Fahrenthold told WNYC. "Celebrities stopped coming. Sports teams almost entirely stopped coming.
"It was interesting to me to see the change in the clientele there. I mean, that was a place that used to have a velvet rope outside, papparazzi, Ferraris," Fahrenthold said. "It's like a Hampton Inn now."
The Trump name has been removed from plaques, televisions and even chocolate inside the hotel, as Fahrenthold tweeted from his stay.
Employees seemed to think that a new name would be announced today. But sign was still up this am when I left. https://t.co/RaNdwTiWx8
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) December 20, 2017
Fahrenthold spoke with WNYC's Richard Hake.