UWS Lawmakers Tell Museum To Let People Vote Amid School Complaints

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — At one point, New Yorkers could get a COVID vaccine underneath the iconic blue whale inside the American Museum of Natural History.

And if these Upper West Side lawmakers have their way, you might be able to cast your ballot underneath it, too.

A letter signed by three Upper West Side elected officials — State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, and City Council Member Gale Brewer — is asking for the storied museum to help alleviate early voting challenges faced by a local school.

Since 2022, the nearby William O’Shea Complex on West 77th Street has served as an early voting site, the letter states.

But the nine day early voting period has been a major hardship for the roughly 1,500 students who attend school inside the building, with parents, faculty and staff sending their complaints to the lawmaker's offices.

"Because early voting is held in the cafeteria while school is in session, students are unable to eat hot food for that week," the letter reads. "Students are also forced to eat in the hallways in unsanitary conditions, disrupting necessary lunchtime socialization."

Parents are also concerned about safety issues inside the school, with teachers and students regularly encountering adult voters wandering the halls and using the bathrooms, the letter says.

"The NYC Board of Elections (BOE) is not equipped to closely police building access, on top of their immense electoral responsibilities," the lawmakers wrote.

Instead, the officials are asking the Museum to step up and help the community out by exploring the viability of holding early voting there and giving the school a break.

The letter asks museum officials to allow the BOE to inspect and evaluate the suitability of the site as an early voting location, and, if approved, to serve as an early voting location for primary and general elections.

And it appears to have worked.

Hoylman-Sigal’s office told West Side Rag that museum officials have already reached out to the elections board and are currently working with the office to figure out if voting is viable on the site.

In a 2020 story about over 50 tax-exempt city locations who objected to being designated as polling sites, Gothamist reported that the American Museum of Natural History claimed that the designation as a polling site would have an “unmanageable impact,” adding that since their cafeteria has a liquor license to sell beer, election law prohibits the use of the site as a place for voting because of the sale of alcohol.

Other institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, have served as a polling site for early and day-of voting for years with little issue.

Across the park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which objected the BOE's request in 2020, agreed in 2021 to serve as an early voting site, Gothamist reported.