Nestled between the Gucci and Tiffany & Co. flagship stores on bustling Fifth Avenue in New York City is America's newest security challenge — a presidential residence.
Trump Tower, the primary residence of President-elect Donald Trump, happens to sit on one of the busiest thoroughfares in Manhattan. The city, no stranger to traffic jams, could be in for even more headaches.
While other presidents have had remote havens and carefully selected homes on quiet streets, Trump Tower is an apartment building with office and commercial space on a shared block with city buses, taxi cabs and private vehicles humming alongside it. Tourists flood the area and its surrounding high-end stores.
It's hard to imagine the Secret Service roping off a full street as they did at Hillary Clinton's Chappaqua, New York residence, only allowing neighbors to drive near her home.
On a rainy Wednesday just hours after Trump shocked the nation with an upset win, the New York Police Department began setting up more permanent security measures. NBC News observed a mobile command post being installed; cement barricades began to join the sand-filled trucks put in place for election night security. Metal fencing roped off parts of surrounding blocks, derailing wayward tourists and surprising neighborhood workers looking for lunch.
Mere feet away, a woman tried to burn a flag — a task derailed by the rain and apparent non-flammable material — while pedestrians scolded her, insisting she should leave the country as cops stood nearby. (Burning a flag is not illegal; starting a fire on Fifth Avenue would be.)
"We are assisting the Secret Service with security measures for the president-elect,” an NYPD spokesman told NBC News.
While Trump’s personal safety is guarded by the Secret Service, vehicle and pedestrian traffic in and around the building — which was mandated in its construction to provide public space areas — will likely be handled by the NYPD’s uniformed officers. The NYPD will likely release more information in the near future on what restrictions may be put into place for pedestrian and vehicular traffic near the Trump Tower.
Nearby, two young women jumped up and down for a gleeful photo in front of the Trump Tower sign.
“He promises a lot more things — creating jobs. We need a businessman here. You never get any jobs from a poor person,” California resident Yoli Bachar, 37, told NBC News after posing for the photo. She rejected the idea that Latino voters like herself opposed Trump for his divisive remarks. “He’s going to, you know, support everyone.”
