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Yesterday, Donald Trump kept telling people, was the day he was originally scheduled to get married to the now-recycled Marla Maples. "So is he here strolling for babes?" asked an amused city councilman, as Trump wandered around the second floor of City Hall, displaying what appeared to be a $300 duck-tail haircut.
Inside the council chambers, the legislators were voting 42-8 to approve Riverside South, Trump's huge proposed development on the West Side of Manhattan.
The go-ahead will not restore Trump to his old billionaire status. But it will make him a somewhat less financially embattled thousandaire.
"He'd definitely prefer having Riverside South to Marla," said one of Trump's many, many public relations advisers.
Anyway, how often does a guy get the chance to sit in the public balcony and listen to City Council debate his character?
"My in-laws' rabbi lives in one of Fred Trump's buildings!" declaimed Noach Dear (D-Brooklyn). "If Manhattan doesn't want the project, Donald, you can build in my district."
"Sometimes famous people - it's like a fish. They open their mouth so long and they're under water so long they become arrogant," said Councilman Israel Ruiz (D-Bronx).
As usual, it was impossible to tell which side of the argument Ruiz was taking, even though he spoke so long the other members turned off his microphone.
To hear Trump tell it, City Hall has...