West Side Story

Anyone looking to score a souvenir Campaign 2005 poster ought to head to the Upper West Side. The place is plastered by them. Poll workers and posters for Manhattan beep runners Brian Ellner, Scott Stringer (his "Reformer Who Gets Results" slogan reminds some of Dubya's 2000 "Reformer with Results" line), and Eva Moskowitz, surrogate court candidates Eve Rachel Markewich and Kris Glen, and a host of City Council campaigns are out there. So are five-foot-high self-standing posters for Gifford Miller, who has to do well on the UWS and UES if he hopes to squeeze into a runoff (still a possibility given the turnout issue, see below). Leslie Crocker Snyder has printed her entire New York Times endorsement on poster board. At P.S. 163 on West 97th, where a broad patio sits in front of the polling place, the rival poll workers are set up in separate camps. It looks like a fair as Norman Siegel greets voters there, almost all of whom say they are voting for him—except for one who someone swears says, "Yuck." But while the campaigns are out in force on the West Side, the voters aren't. One polling place has only 55 voters by noon. At P.S. 163 there have been only 118. The word from everywhere seems to be that turnout is very, very light.