STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Casey O’Connor-Manasia’s road to politics is anything but traditional.
She’s a Staten Island small-business owner who spent years working as a waitress, bartender, medical assistant, stockbroker and restaurant manager before opening two local bagel shops.
Now, the Randall Manor resident, wife and mother of two is seeking a different role, running as the Republican candidate against Democratic incumbent Assemblymember Charles Fall in New York’s 61st District.
In an interview with the Advance/SILive.com, O’Connor-Manasia, 52, stressed she’s a neighbor and a local woman looking to fight for her community to make a change.
A Randall Manor resident, O’Connor-Manasia grew up on Staten Island, but originally, she was from the West Coast.
Born in San Francisco, she moved to Brooklyn when she was 8 years old. After spending two years in Bensonhurst, O’Connor-Manasia found her way to Staten Island in the mid-1980s.
During her time living in Sunnyside, she attended nearby PS 35. She then went to Prall Intermediate School (I.S. 27) in West Brighton, Curtis High School and New Dorp High School.
O’Connor-Manasia has been married to her sanitation worker husband for 26 years. A mother to two children, she has a 21-year-old son and a soon-to-be 16-year-old daughter.
Initially, she had sought to be an engineer and was enrolled at the College of Staten Island in Willowbrook. However, life had other plans.
Casey O’Connor-Manasia opened up Hillside Farm to Bagel in Dongan Hills in 2022, followed closely by Castleton Farm to Bagel in West Brighton in 2024.(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon)
She moved out of her home at the age of 16 and worked as a waitress and bartender to pay the bills.
O’Connor-Manasia then went back to school and became a medical assistant for a period of time before becoming a Wall Street stockbroker.
“Then 2008 happened, so that kind of changed the trajectory,” she said.
While the food industry had constantly served as something of a side job, O’Connor-Manasia would end up devoting even more time to the restaurant business when she became general manager of Max’s Es-ca in Dongan Hills for about a decade.
After that, O’Connor-Manasia went on to open up Hillside Farm to Bagel in Dongan Hills in 2022, followed closely by Castleton Farm to Bagel in West Brighton in 2024.
For O’Connor-Manasia, politics wasn’t in the cards, until a friend approached her and asked if she would consider running for the Assembly seat.
At first, she told her friend that “they were crazy” before taking a drive around the neighborhood and coming to a decision.
“And again, I’ve been living in this general area for 20-something years and I’ve seen the changes, and some of them are not for the good,” O’Connor-Manasia said. “It was really difficult to open up this business, you know, with all the red tape and inspections and there wasn’t much help from the city or the state to get open and that was difficult.”
Casey O’Connor-Manasia, the Republican candidate for state Assembly in the North Shore, speaks with the Advance/SILive.com at her food establishment, Castleton Farm to Bagel in West Brighton on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon)
Her teenage daughter attends Susan Wagner High School in Sea View, and as a mother seeking to ensure her child’s safety, O’Connor-Manasia continues to drive her to school daily, citing a lack of confidence in the safety of public transportation.
“Something has to change, something has to give, because one day I’m not going to be here to take care of my kids and drive them to school and protect them,” she added.
O’Connor-Manasia pointed to her son, a senior in college, and noted how he has a desire to move out of his family home, but the “feasibility” of such happening with the current state of this economy is “absolutely impossible.”
Out on the campaign trail, O’Connor-Manasia said she has been hearing concerns over cannabis shops popping up in her neighborhood.
She pointed to two in the area, one of which opened where a small business once stood, and another that opened a few doors down from a playground.
For O’Connor-Manasia, regulating these sprouting cannabis shops is a top priority.
“I am not a politician, I am a woman from here, your neighbor, a small business owner,” she said. “I live here, I work here and raise my kids here.”(Advance/SILive.com | Jason Paderon)
She also raised concerns over the development of the waterfront on Staten Island’s North Shore.
“St. George is a great, great neighborhood, a great community, and the potential is fantastic down there,” O’Connor-Manasia said. “However, they’re talking about putting up 18-story buildings with four parking spots and this is going to be pushed through city planning, but it doesn’t seem to me that there’s actually much planning involved.”
She was referencing a plan recently approved by the City Council.
She noted how a potential high-rise building could “change the whole landscape.”
“It sounds like a great idea on paper, but I think the structure needs to be there, the infrastructure; there’s no schools, where are these kids going to go to school? Where are these people going to park their cars?” she said.
Being a small-business owner, O’Connor-Manasia said she hears from “all walks of life,” whether it be the nurses at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton or people coming out of nearby Richmond County Civil Court. This engagement with the community has provided her with a variety of perspectives and views, she said.
“I am not a politician, I am a woman from here, your neighbor, a small business owner,” she said. “I live here, I work here and raise my kids here.”
“I am actually part of this community, my family is invested here, my business is invested here, my life is invested here,” she added. “I have skin in this. I am here to take our community’s real voices to Albany and fight for what we actually need, what we actually want.”