Inside the red-brick Brooklyn schoolhouse, you’re greeted by a waft of indistinct odors—Freshly brewed coffee? Multi-day-old sweat? Oven-fresh sweet breads? The rubber of basketballs? The menthol, camphol, and mint oil of tiger balm?
At noon, at the polls, the atmosphere is jovial, casual, communal, congratulatory.
At the top of the steps, on the first-floor landing, folding tables display a motley array of ingestible goods—apples, oranges, bananas, miniature pumpkin pies, cake pops, and double-stuffed oreos. Ziploc bags with trail mix. Garden salads with Wish-Bone dressing. Sugary beverages and bottled water. Not sustenance for the pre-K through 5 set who enter these walls daily, but treats for a district-wide crowd who file into the building from morning till night to fulfill their civic duties.
At noon, at the polls, the atmosphere is jovial, casual, communal, congratulatory.
In the gymnasium, battered folding tables line the walls, and pairs of poll workers sit there patiently with bulging binders. ‘Make sure your vote counts,’ you’re informed in Spanish, Chinese, and English by instructional notices posted throughout the room. Stay-at-home moms push teething toddlers. Elderly couples make their way slowly to voting booths. Freelancers take a break from their solitary home-office work to cast a ballot.
At noon, at the polls, the atmosphere is jovial, casual, communal, congratulatory. Congratulations. You’re part of the voting minority.
(Last time we voted for mayor, less than a third of eligible voters cast a vote.)