Forum

Ivana Trump's favorite New York restaurant left her preferred table empty and covered with flowers to pay tribute as she was laid to rest.  

Italian restaurant Nello, located just blocks from Ivana's Upper East Side townhouse, covered the socialite's favorite table with candles and red carnations Wednesday. 

A giant red teddy bear was placed at the dinning table, presumably where Ivana used to sit.

The ex-wife of former President often frequented Nello, having eaten there just last month.

Ivana died on July 14, aged 73, after falling down the stairs at her Upper East Side home.

She was memorialized Wednesday during a funeral attended by family and close friends, including Nello owner Thomas Makkos. 

Makkos said his staff is 'mourning the loss of a favorite patron' and explained how she will be 'sorely missed.'

Ivana would dine at Nello several nights a week, usually seated at her favorite table which was turned into a makeshift memorial on Wednesday.

'Tonight, we will pay tribute to her friendship by leaving her favorite table empty with a candle memorial display,' Makkos said.  

'Ivana was beloved by all who work here and will be sorely missed.'

The restaurant says Ivana dined at the popular Italian ristorante for many years, sometimes joined by her children, grandkids and former husbands.

Sometimes staff would escort Ivana back to her townhouse after she finished dining, Makkos said. 

'The Trumps spent much time here as a family over the years, and we offer our sincerest condolence as they grieve her tragic passing,' the owner said.

'We join millions of New Yorkers in mourning her loss.'

A picture of Ivana dining at Nello many years ago is also on display at the restaurant.

Nello manager Atilla Cetin spoke to the day after she died, revealing how she seemed 'happy and healthy' in the weeks before her passing.

'How she talked, how she walked … she looked like she was born in a castle.

I can't believe it, because she looked so healthy,' Cetin said on July 15.

'I would walk her to her house and she never complained about anything bothering her. Still, now, I want to walk there and ask, ''are you guys sure that it is her who died?'''   

He said he had walked past her apartment the day before she died and briefly thought about checking in on her, but ultimately didn't.

'I should come by because I hadn't seen her in a while.

I wish I had, but I didn't want to bother her,' Cetin told DailyMail.com, before showing how Ivana had texted him a DailyMail.com article picturing him walking her home in May.

'She was so wonderful. [To us] she was our First Lady.

Even when she was walking to the restaurant and people would want to take a picture with her or talk to her, she never refused anyone. She was always so polite, so amazing,' he said.

Cetin said Ivana would frequent the restaurant 'twice a week,' or sometimes three or four times a month. 

He showed DailyMail.com pictures of Ivana and Donald Trump on the restaurant's celebrity wall.

The two developed a close relationship during Cetin's last eight years at the restaurant, and he would often find himself laughing while talking with Ivana as he walked her home after she dined.

Most of the time, however, Cetin said Ivana visited the restaurant with friends, politicians and designers. 

The manager said Ivana would usually get the Ossobuco, a cross-cut veal dish braised with vegetables.

Ivana's life was celebrated Wednesday during a funeral mass held at St.

Vincent Ferrer Church in Manhattan.

Her  three children - Donald Trump Jr, Eric and Ivanka - all spoke at the service in front of 100 mourners, including former President Donald Trump, his wife Melania and their 16-year-old son Barron.  

'Growing up, my mother didn't tell me a woman could do anything she wanted to — she showed me,' Ivanka said sincerely. 

'She was a trailblazer to men and women alike. My mother once told me there was nothing she couldn't do in heels.

She taught us how to spear fish and then cook what we caught. My mom expanded our minds.'

Don Jr. spoke next and delighted the congregation with fond memories and jokes. Before he returned to his seat, he said: 'I love you, mom.' 

Eric Trump, the youngest, spoke next: 'She had brains; she had beauty.

She was the embodiment of the American dream... She was a force of nature, could beat any man down the slopes, any woman on the runway.

'She ruled the three of us [kids] with an iron fist but also a heart of gold,' said Eric. 

After the service, Ivana's body was carried out of the building in a golden casket, past her family and dozens of VIP guests. 

A woman, who appeared to be Ivana's caregiver, cried on the church's steps as the pallbearers passed.

Her remains were then carried to her ex-husband's golf club in New Jersey where a private reception was held.

Ivana was born in the Czech city of Zlin in 1949, to electrical engineer father Miloš Zelníček and 메리트카지노 telephone operator mom Marie Zelníčková.

She was a prodigious skier.

It was that talent - encouraged by her father - that proved the key to her escape from the gloom of Communist life behind the Iron Curtain in 1971.

She was briefly married to Austrian ski instructor Alfred Winklmayr, a friend, with whom she tied the knot to gain an Austrian passport - and a one-way ticket to the West.

They divorced after less than two years.

Ivana herself worked as a ski instructor in Montreal in the early-1970s.

She settled in Canada before she moved to New York City to be with Donald, whom she was married to from 1977 to 1992. 

Ivana recounted in her memoir how Donald secured her and her friends a table at a hot Manhattan restaurant, paid the check and chauffeured her back to her hotel in a Cadillac.

'My instincts told me that Donald was smart and funny - an all-American good guy,' she wrote in her 2017 memoir 'Raising Trump.'

That encounter helped propel Ivana to a life of unimaginable wealth and luxury - although she used her famed work ethic to turn her $14 million divorce settlement from Donald into an even greater fortune.

Rather than rest on her laurels during the Trumps' tempestuous 15 year marriage, Ivana worked as executive vice president of interior design at the then property mogul's businesses.

That included overseeing the décor at Trump Tower in Manhattan - including its famed pink marble interior.

Ivana also oversaw construction of the Grand 메리트카지노 Hyatt Hotel in NYC, as well as the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic city. She later became the manager of New York City's iconic Plaza Hotel after Donald bought the Central Park South property in 1988.

At the height of their relationship, the two were business partners, working on some major projects like development of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the renovation of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City and the construction of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

But by 1989, there started to be some trouble in paradise for the couple - as they were observed fighting while on vacation in Aspen, Colorado, after Ivana discovered that Donald was having an affair with Marla Maples - who would go on to be his second wife.

When Ivana's marriage to Donald imploded in 1990, she was able to leverage a pre-nuptial agreement that had been updated four times during their marriage, to secure what was then one of the biggest divorce settlements in history.

She pocketed a cool $14 million after the split was finalized in 1992.

As well as that lump sum, Ivana was also given a 45-room Connecticut mansion and an apartment at Trump's New York Trump Plaza apartment complex.

She went on to sell the Connecticut mansion for $15 million in 1998, almost doubling her assets at a stroke.

At the time of Ivana's death, her fortune sat at an estimated $100 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

Despite the couple's torrid divorce, Donald and Ivana reunited for a pithy Pizza Hut advert in 1995 which mocked their own relationship.

The commercial saw the pair pretend to flirt on screen while implying that getting back together would be 'wrong'.

They then revealed that they were actually discussing eating pizza crust-first.

That advert typified Ivana's need to work, as she sought to build her own career, rather than just fritter away her divorce settlement.

She designed multiple fashion lines inspired by her famously glitzy taste in clothes and jewels, which were sold on TV channels the Home Shopping Network and QVC.

Recognizing the power of her image, Ivana would herself appear on TV to sell her wares to viewers.

The secret of her success was to make fans feel as if a purchase from one of her lines would help give them a foothold into an enviable lifestyle like hers.

The pinnacle of Ivana's career as a fashion plate came in 1995, when she opened the House of Ivana fashion and fragrance company on New York's Park Avenue.

In 1998, Ivana dabbled in the world of media, acquiring a stake in Croatia's Slobodna Dalmacija newspaper, which was later sold as the publication's fortunes declined.

She dabbled in property development, but enjoyed her most consistent success by marketing her own image.

Ivana published multiple autobiographical tomes, including For Love Alone and Free To Love.

She also penned a 1995 self-help book called The Best Is Yet To come, and even turned her attention to an agony aunt column.

It was called 'Ask Ivana' and ran in Globe for an impressive 15 years, from 1995 to 2010.

During her later years, Ivana largely dropped out of the spotlight.

In 2017 she published Raising Trump, the definitive account of her marriage to the then-newly elected president.

The tome also focused on Ivana's relationship with the couple's three children; Donald Jr, Ivanka a

c.