House Rules Snuff Anti-Trump Protest

For co-op boards, house rules can be a minefield. Some have tried to forbid displaying the American flag on apartment doors. Others have imposed house rules preventing shareholders from displaying advertising or political posters in their windows. Normally, these rules don’t make news. But these are the early days of the Trump administration, when nothing is normal.

The board at 415 Central Park West, a posh prewar co-op, has ordered anti-Trump shareholders to remove large block letters from their windows that spelled out “RESIST” over the Presidents’ Day weekend – a violation of a house rule that forbids advertising in windows, the New York Post reports.

“It’s a house rule,” says board president Gloria Baker, adding that the co-op board’s request had nothing to do with politics. “There are people very much in favor of the signs and people who are not.”

The dozen or so handmade signs, which were visible from street level and the park, went up Friday and have since been taken down. “They are a sign of resistance about the injustices being done and [that] will be done by the Trump administration,” says Linda Goldenberg, 75, a 14th-floor resident who was among those displaying the signs. “The letters may not have the greatest visibility, but they are something. We wanted to do this for Presidents’ [Day] weekend.”

The love New Yorkers feel for their home-grown president seems to know no bounds. Back during the contentious election campaign, residents of several Trump buildings on the Upper West Side demanded that the T-word, writ in large silver letters, be removed from the fronts of their buildings. And it was done.

“People are pro-Trump in the building,” says one resident of 415 Central Park West, who gave his name only as Dick. “But they better not speak about it or they will be lynched.”