[1] Donald Trump negotiated a 40-year deal with the owner of the land in which the building would pay an annual rent of approximately $1.2 million until 2023.

The project, initially expected to cost $50 million, was to contain 180 cooperative apartment units, located above 12,000 sq ft (1,100 m2) of retail space that would be situated on the ground floor.

In 1986 Rudy Giuliani and the SDNY indicted Salerno on racketeering linked to the bid rigging of concrete and construction on Trump Plaza, as well as other buildings built in the era.

"[16] Birnbaum was subsequently hired to design a nearby high-rise condominium known as the Savoy, to be built at the opposite intersection corner diagonally across from Trump Plaza.

Birnbaum gave the Savoy a similar design to Trump Plaza, as he envisioned the buildings as the gateway to upper Third Avenue.

In April 1984, Trump sued Birnbaum and Morton Olshan, owner of the Savoy, for allegedly copying the design of his building.

[19][13][20][21] In 2016, Steve Cuozzo of the New York Post stated that the area around Trump Plaza had been "a lost highway of tenements and boxy, bland apartment buildings" and that the project "inspired four more similarly configured towers on the avenue and lent some badly needed class to uptown east of Lexington Avenue.

[23][24][25] In 2004, Select Comfort signed a 10-year lease to operate a 2,400 sq ft (220 m2) furniture store inside the building, replacing a restaurant known as Commissary.

[26][27] In 2007, western retailer Billy Martin's USA opened a new 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) store inside Trump Plaza.