Real estate mogul Donald Trump enjoys a good opportunity to get his name in the news and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has just given him another one. Emanuel has jumped aboard a campaign against Trump’s new giant ‘TRUMP’ sign on his Trump International Hotel & Tower along the Chicago River.

Emanuel is a little late to the game, though, as the Chicago Sun-Times points out. The campaign against the sign has been lead by the Tribune’s architecture critic Blair Kamin.

Kelley Quinn, Emanuel’s communications director, said Thursday that the mayor considers the sign “architecturally tasteless” and said it “scarred” the second-tallest building in the city.

“The sign — which was already reduced in size and scope — does comply with the provisions of the planned development ordinance and the City Council sign order,” Quinn continued. “But he has asked his staff to determine if there are any options available for further changes.”

Kamin, who has won a Pulitzer Prize, told the Associated Press that if the sign was in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, “nobody would care — but it is in Chicago, and in a part of Chicago full of great buildings from the 1920s to the 1960s and onward.”

Trump considers Kamin a “third-rate architecture critic” and said that he got full approval to put the sign up. “I have the hottest brand in the world right now and there are those who are saying I'm doing Chicago a favor,” Trump told the AP, noting that there are people who like the sign.

While Emanuel, Kamin and others hate it, The Donald is trying to prove that people disagree with them. He has retweeted several messages of support. One person wrote to him, “So many other things to worry about in this world and a sign is one??? Give me a break! LOVE IT!!"

image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com