Taliban Trump hasn’t changed in over 30 years.

Two stone bas-relief sculptures high on the façade of the Bonwit Teller Building under demolition on Fifth Avenue — pieces that had been sought with enthusiasm by the Metropolitan Museum of Art — were smashed by jackhammers yesterday on the orders of a real estate developer.

- New York Times (June 6, 1980)

And Trump’s alter ego John Barron makes an early appearance.

When first questioned about the fate of the sculptures, Trump spokesman John Barron claimed that three independent appraisers had declared them to be “without artistic merit” — an assessment that flabbergasted Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the board of trustees of the Met.

(Update: Washington Post colleague Michael Kranish, showing his excellent memory, points out that “John Barron,” sometimes spelled “Baron,” was actually a false name Trump used in phone interviews during the 1980s. At the time of its reporting on the sculptures, the Times had not yet discovered the ruse.)

“Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?” he asked.

Barron said removing the pieces would have cost $32,000 and delayed work by at least a week and a half.

In a follow-up story the next day, Barron conceded that the rare bronze grillwork was missing and said “we don’t know what happened to it.”

washingtonpost.com