Voting will be a giant blue whale of an experience for some Manhattanites this year.
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) will serve as an early voting site, beginning with the upcoming primary elections in June.
The Upper West Side museum will be open for voting in the NYS primary election Saturday, June 15, to Sunday, June 23. The primary for the presidential election was April 2 in New York.
West Siders who live in the neighborhood usually vote at the William O’Shea complex, which is home to three public schools located across the street from the museum on Columbus Avenue. But local lawmakers advocated for finding a new location after parents cited safety and logistical concerns about using the schools as early voting sites.
Voting typically took place in school lunch rooms, leaving cafeteria staff unable to properly serve the students, according to local officials and parents.
State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, along with Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and Council Member Gale Brewer, asked AMNH last month to host early voting in light of the concerns.
“Unfortunately, the nine days of early voting impair school operations, restrict nutritional options for students and compromise student safety. Numerous parents and faculty and staff from the William O’Shea Complex have reached out to our offices, detailing the burdens that early voting has posed,” the letter stated. “In addition to improving conditions at the William O’Shea Complex, your decision to serve as an early voting location would continue AMNH’s long-standing and deserved reputation as a hospitable neighbor for West Siders and improve our constituents’ access to the ballot box.”
The museum’s president, Sean Decatur, obliged the request. Hoylman-Sigal replied by calling the answer “dino-mite,” in reference to the museum’s extensive dinosaur bone and fossil collection.
“Thanks to the generosity of AMNH, no longer will hundreds of public school students be forced to share their busy school day with an early voting location at the William O’Shea educational campus because the museum has agreed to become an early voting location starting this June,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a press release. “I’m grateful to the teachers, parents and administrators for raising this issue and especially AMNH president Sean Decatur and the NYC Board of Elections, along with my colleagues Assembly Member Rosenthal and Council Member Brewer, for their community partnership in making this new early-voting site possible.”
Decatur said he is “excited” for the museum’s latest opportunity to support the community.
“In addition to being a place of science, education and engagement, the American Museum of Natural History is an important civic resource for our community, so we are particularly excited about the opportunity to serve as a voting site and to provide a convenient and accessible way for our neighbors to exercise their fundamental democratic right,” Decatur said.
For more information about voting in New York City, including important dates and voting sites, visit nycvotes.org.
