At the city’s northernmost polling place located in PS 16 in the Bronx’s Wakefield neighborhood, voters said they were ready for change, regardless of who they voted for.
“I voted for the young guy,” Lorna Ricketts said, referring to Zohran Mamdani. “He can’t do all them things he promised, but god knows we need somebody to make us laugh again.”
College student and lifelong Bronx resident Kianna Adams voted for the first time Tuesday, casting her vote for Mamdani. She said she’s reliant on public transportation to get to class and she liked his proposals for free and faster buses. “I really believe in what he has to say,” she said.
But other voters weren’t as enthusiastic.
Daron Green said Andrew Cuomo is “the devil, I know,” but added that he voted for the former governor. Green said that Mamdani scares him.
“And so does [Curtis] Sliwa. I remember in my younger years, when he did the Guardian Angels downtown, they targeted us,” Green said, pointing to his Black skin.
A registered Democrat who only wanted to provide her initials as P.S. told CNN that years ago she threw eggs at Sliwa and his Guardian Angels when they started patrolling the city.
That didn’t stop her from voting for him on Tuesday. Sliwa, she said, was the better candidate for city workers like herself.
“I was very affected by the changes [Cuomo] made to social security, to my pension,” said P.S., who works for NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services. “I can’t blame him for the past, but I am still a little bitter, so I wasn’t convinced to vote for him.”