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Veterans Day Parade: Trump, After Snubbing N.Y.C., Will Return

The president is going to help kick off the Veterans Day Parade on Monday, the first president to do so.

President Trump lived in Midtown Manhattan for decades. Since taking office, he has only made a few trips back to New York City.Credit...Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

President Trump may have officially declared himself a permanent Florida resident, but he keeps returning to his hometown.

On Monday, Mr. Trump will be kicking off the 100th annual New York City Veterans Day Parade at Madison Square Park in Manhattan, the event organizers announced on Wednesday. He will be the first president to participate in the parade.

Mr. Trump is deeply unpopular in the city and his visits are often met with protests. On Saturday, Mr. Trump popped into Manhattan for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at Madison Square Garden. The reaction when he arrived: loud boos, and some cheers.

The president will give an address at the park. He had been slated to lay a wreath at the Eternal Light Flagstaff memorial inside the park, the traditional site of the city’s Veterans Day ceremony but the White House decided that he would not after all, according to a parade spokesman, Pat Smith.

Mr. Trump will not march in the parade, which begins by the park at 24th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and proceeds north to 48th Street. It kicks off at noon on Monday.

A spokesman for the White House confirmed Mr. Trump’s participation in the event.

For decades, Mr. Trump lived in an eponymous skyscraper on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. He began his unlikely presidential bid from its lobby. After winning, he moved to Washington, with only a handful trips back to New York City.

But in late September Mr. Trump declared that his permanent residence was now his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.

After news broke of the residency change last week, Mr. Trump, a Republican, said he had been treated “very badly” by top officials in New York, who are Democrats.

Mr. Trump spent a lifetime in New York City and for years lived a life that could happen only here: Born in Queens to a self-made millionaire who made a fortune building affordable housing, the younger Mr. Trump expanded the family business and barged into the upper echelon of Manhattan’s wealthy establishment.

With every success and setback, Mr. Trump seemed to generate an endless supply of headlines and a growing feeling that he was not fully embraced by the very people he was surrounded by in his city.

Mr. Trump is now in a fight with the Manhattan district attorney over a subpoena for his personal and business tax records. And in Washington, Mr. Trump is trying to fend off an impeachment inquiry into accusations that he solicited a foreign leader’s help in digging up dirt on a political rival.

Douglas McGowan, the chairman of the United War Veterans Council, which organizes the annual parade, said that for years Mr. Trump has donated and helped raise money for the parade, including a $350,000 donation to the parade in 1995, when he was named a co-chair of the event. Mr. Trump had also given several donations totaling more than $1 million for a memorial plaza dedicated to Vietnam veterans, Mr. McGowan added in an interview.

“We’re honored to have him accept the invitation,” Mr. McGowan said. He declined to comment when asked about the president’s attacks on prominent veterans and military families who had disagreed with him politically, including Senator John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and the parents of an Army captain who died in Iraq.

“We’re here to discuss the 100th anniversary of the Veterans Day Parade,” Mr. McGowan said.

Bill White, a former president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in Manhattan, has helped raise money for an array of programs benefiting veterans. He said Mr. Trump had been a steadfast supporter of those causes.

“I always thought he was in awe of the military,” Mr. White recalled.

Mr. White was at the U.F.C. fight that Mr. Trump attended this weekend and said he expected a different reception for the president on Monday. “I would be surprised if he got any boos in the parade,” Mr. White said.

Asked about Mr. Trump’s participation, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Wednesday it was important to focus on veterans at the parade. “This is not about him,” Mr. de Blasio said of Mr. Trump. He went on to say, “it should not be politicized. It should not be a spectacle. If he’s really coming here to truly honor veterans, God bless him.”

Azi Paybarah is a reporter covering breaking news, based in New York. Before joining The Times in 2018 he covered politics for WNYC and The New York Observer. He helped launch the website that later became Politico New York and co-founded the FAQ NYC podcast. He is a lifelong New Yorker and graduate of the University at Albany. More about Azi Paybarah

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump, a New Ex-New Yorker, Will Return for a Veterans Day Parade Kickoff. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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