In a presidential contest between two New Yorkers, you might have expected a lot of dirt around electorally unpopular aspects of the city: the details of currying favor with Wall Street, billionaires making untaxed billions on Manhattan real estate, that sort of thing.
The defining issue over the past month has, in fact, been the accusations from almost a dozen women that GOP nominee Donald Trump harassed, groped, or made unwanted advances to them.
And that, too, is a New York story.
Of the 12 women who have now alleged that Donald Trump groped, kissed without consent, or made unwanted advances toward them, all but three have solid connections to New York. (Another woman said she was groped by a stranger while protesting at Trump Tower this weekend.) The Trump campaign denies all the accusations.
"The events never happened," Trump told reporters Saturday. "Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over."
Alleged Incidents That Happened in New York City
A majority of the incidents allegedly occurred here. Kristin Anderson accused Trump of reaching his hand up her miniskirt and touching her inappropriately at the China Club, a hip Manhattan nightspot, in 1992. Karena Virginia, a yoga instructor and life coach, accused Trump of grabbing her breast and arm during the 1998 U.S. Open when she was 27 years old.
In a 1996 deposition reviewed by the New York Times, Jill Harth said that when she and her then-boyfriend first met Trump at Trump Tower in 1992, he asked her husband, "Are you sleeping with her?" They had dinner at the Plaza Hotel the next night.
“Basically he name-dropped throughout that dinner, when he wasn’t groping me under the table,” Harth reportedly said in the deposition. Harth told the Times that years after, Trump offered to fly her back to New York to meet him.
Trump Tower a Common Motif
Three other women besides Harth tell stories of inappropriate behavior at the GOP candidate's signature Midtown skyscraper.
Temple Taggart McDowell, a former Miss USA contestant from Utah, accused Trump of kissing her on the mouth on two occasions, one of which took place in Trump Tower, according to the New York Times. At the time, back in 1998, Taggart was 21 years old and had been named Miss Utah.
Rachel Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist at Trump Tower in 2005 when she met Trump outside an elevator in the Midtown building. Trump began kissing her on the cheek and on the mouth, Crooks told the Times. “I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that,” she told the paper.
Summer Zervos was a contestant on the 2006 season of Trump's reality TV show, "The Apprentice." According to the Huffington Post, Zervos approached Trump at some point after the season concluded and asked about a job at one of his companies. They met in his New York office, where she says he kissed her on the mouth.
"I was upset by the kiss," she said, according to the website. Later, she and Trump met at a Beverly Hills hotel where he allegedly made sexual advances and groped and kissed her, Zervos said.
Living and Working in New York
Six women who lived or worked in New York City and New York State have come forward with accusations.
Jessica Leeds, a 74-year-old businesswoman at a newspaper company who lives in the city, accused Trump of groping her on an airline flight to New York more than three decades ago, according to the New York Times. Shortly after the plane took off, Trump, who was sitting next to Leeds in the first class cabin, lifted the armrest between them and touched her breast and tried to reach up her skirt, she told the paper. She fled to the back of the cabin. "It was an assault," she said.
Natasha Stoynoff, a New York-based reporter for People magazine, wrote a first-person account of an alleged attack by Trump before an interview at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. "We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us," she wrote. "I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat."
When she returned to People's New York bureau, Stoynoff told her boss and some coworkers, and asked to be taken off "the Trump beat," according to reports in People magazine. Stoynoff said she ran into Trump's wife Melania last year outside Trump Tower, at which point Melania asked 'Why don’t we see you anymore?’
Crooks, Virginia, and Anderson all have lived in or around New York City. Harth lives in New York now. Cathy Heller, 63, who lives in New York State, told The Guardian that in 1997 Trump grabbed her and tried to kiss her at an event at his Mar-a-lago estate in Florida.
