Trump’s ‘Garden of Heroes,’ including black Americans, won’t be in New York — thanks to the #Resistance

Speaking at a Black History event Thursday in the White House, President Donald Trump praised the memory of Prince Estabrook, a slave and Massachusetts Minuteman who was wounded at the 1775 Battle of Lexington.

Trump noted that the African American patriot was “one of the first in the nation to spill blood in that very, very tough time,” and went on to announce that his statue will be erected in the coming National Garden of American Heroes — a project the president put forth in his first term, and has revived.

The new “statue park,” Trump explained, will “honor hundreds of our greatest Americans to ever live, including countless black American icons.”

To great applause, the president named Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass and Muhammad Ali, among others, as examples of the caliber of American heroes whose statues will populate this new park.

Kobe Bryant, Trump added, will be included, as will the NASA mathematicians featured in “Hidden Figures.”

Sounds great! If only the nation already had a world-class national “statue park,” featuring bronze-cast representations of the greatest Americans.

Imagine if New York City had an attraction such as this.

Oh, wait — we do: The Hall of Fame for Great Americans, inaugurated in 1901, stands proudly atop a Bronx bluff overlooking the Harlem River.

Situated on the former NYU campus, now Bronx Community College, the Hall of Fame was designed by the great Stanford White as a colonnade around the majestic Gould Library.

Now fallen into obscurity, the Hall of Fame was once a national obsession and tourist attraction drawing tens of thousands of visitors annually.

Nominations to the Hall of Fame were closely covered by the national media through the 1950s.

New plaques and busts were installed once a decade, attended by pomp and presidents.

The whole thing was taken very seriously; changes to the voting process were debated in The New York Times.

This once-glorious site is now a dilapidated mess. The pavers and ceiling tiles are cracked, and limestone cornices have fallen apart.

Steps to reach the Hall of Fame from Sedgwick Avenue have crumbled.

Even the website for the Hall of Fame isn’t quite sure if the place is actually open.

“While we are closed,” it reads, “please refer to our Hall of Fame Brochure.” 

The only work that’s been done on the Hall in years was the removal, in 2017, of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Fixing the site will cost about $12 million, none of which is forthcoming.

CUNY, which technically administers it, prefers — quite plausibly — to use its money for other ends.

It’s a shame that President Trump wants to build a brand new National Garden of American Heroes when we have the foundation for it right here in his old backyard.

Imagine if he put all the money to fund his Garden into repairing and expanding the already beautiful Hall of Fame.

The Bronx would blossom. It would be, as Trump likes to say, incredible.

But there’s no chance that will happen. New York’s political class, out of step as usual with the popular mood, thinks it’s still 2017, and that its job is to “#Resist,” as if the Empire State was occupied territory.

The day after Trump’s victory in November, state Attorney General Tish James and Gov. Kathy Hochul held a bizarre joint press conference promising to “fight” Trump “every step of the way.”

The one local Democrat who has indicated his willingness to work with the White House, Mayor Eric Adams, has been pilloried for it — and is barraged with calls for his immediate removal — by a cadre of minnows who think they are sharks.

The American people are generally pleased with the MAGA agenda, and polls show they think things are looking up.

There is a breeze of patriotism rippling flags across the land.

Meanwhile, the leaders of our state scarcely see themselves as part of America.

Their cynicism, louche ethics and terrible policies have cratered the quality of life from Montauk to Malone.

They wouldn’t want a National Garden of American Heroes if it was gift-wrapped for them — especially not if it came from Trump.

They’d find it embarrassing and gauche.

Their loss. And New York’s.

Seth Barron’s book, “Weaponized,” will be published by Humanix this year.