Primary Election Day on the Upper West Side

By Gus Saltonstall

Primary Election Day has arrived in New York City and on the Upper West Side.

Poll sites opened at 6 a.m. across the five boroughs and will remain open until 9 p.m.

West Side Rag traveled around the Upper West Side during the late morning and, while there weren’t long lines at any of the four neighborhood voting sites we visited, there was still plenty to see.

Comptroller and current mayoral candidate Brad Lander, campaigning at the West 72nd Street subway station around 9:30 a.m., called the Upper West Side one of the city’s important centers of democracy.

“It’s a neighborhood that was a big part of what powered my victory in the comptroller’s race four years ago,” Lander told the Rag, a place with West Side values “that you might just call New York values, that are the bedrock of small d and large D democratic principles.” Among them: “Investing in public goods that enable our common thriving, whether that is our subways, our public schools, our parks, standing up for our immigrant neighbors, insisting on constitutional democracy and the rule of law.”

Lander then held a short press conference on 72nd Street with fellow mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. The two candidates have cross endorsed each other in ranked choice voting for the election.

Upper West Side with @bradlander and @NYWFP pic.twitter.com/Br0klqeFjb

— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) June 24, 2025

Elsewhere on the Upper West Side, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is running for Manhattan Borough President, was spotted at a polling place on West 84th Street, and City Councilmember Shaun Abreu, who is running for re-election in Council District 7, was stationed at the West 109th Street polling site.

Incumbent Abreu struck an upbeat tone. “Our fate will soon be determined,” he told the Rag. “But so far our reception feels very positive on the West Side, and we expect it to continue.”

Abreu is running against Democratic challengers Edafe Okporo and Tiffany Khan in District 7, and Hoylman-Sigal is up against City Councilmember Keith Powers and Calvin Sun.

On the back of the ballot there is just one race in Manhattan, which is incumbent Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Morningside Heights local and Democratic challenger Patrick Timmins.

As temperatures climb toward 100 degrees on Tuesday, poll sites are expected to get busier following work. City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office flagged to the Rag that, as of Tuesday morning, the air conditioners were not working at the polling site at 154 West 93rd Street.

If you need to step into a cooling center on the Upper West Side, you can check out a list here.

Please send in any eye-catching photos of election day in the neighborhood to info@westsiderag.com.

The Rag will post election results in a separate article after polls close on Tuesday night.

Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.