| Ahead of Donald Trump’s rally in the South Bronx tonight, the longtime New Yorker contributor Ian Frazier considers the legacy of Presidential appearances in the neighborhood. The South Bronx has been used for the purposes of political rallying since before the word “Bronx” referred to anything but the Bronx River. In late July of 1781, General George Washington, accompanied by his ally and fellow-general the Comte de Rochambeau, made a series of showy recon marches through the area and out onto Throg’s Neck. They were checking on the British fortification of Manhattan, and possibly feinting that the combined Continental and French armies were about to invade, a strategy that kept more British soldiers in New York and left General Cornwallis without reinforcement in the south—he lost the Battle of Yorktown, and then the war. People notice big gestures when they happen in the South Bronx. The biggest and most consequential gesture any President ever made there occurred almost two hundred years later, on October 5, 1977, when Jimmy Carter and a high-profile entourage drove through the South Bronx to observe the devastation caused by a decade of fires and official neglect. Carter’s witness-bearing did him no clear good politically, but it helped lead to an eventual turnaround in the Bronx’s fortunes. The city and country took notice, and the Bronx began to rebuild. During the Presidential campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan got out of his limo to visit a vacant lot on Charlotte Street, and was booed by the locals for saying that Carter and the Democrats talk but do nothing. Later, President Bill Clinton visited a restored and beautified Charlotte Street to draw attention to the Bronx’s comeback. Now Donald Trump will bring his rally to Crotona Park, where an entrance connects to that street. Will Trump demonstrate any awareness of the revival that began with Carter’s visit almost fifty years ago? We will see. | 
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