Rocks the vote! Museum of Natural History will serve as early voting site on the West Side

Dinosaur fossils at the American Museum of Natural History

Photo by Melanie Pozarycki

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…