FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A little voting pocket in the Financial District was home to one of Manhattan's highest percentage of ballots cast for now President-elect Donald Trump — and it wasn't on Wall Street.
Southbridge Towers — a former affordable housing complex that, after contentious debate, voted to turn its subsidized co-ops into market-rate apartments two years ago — was something of a small bastion of Trump support in an overwhelmingly Clinton-voting Manhattan.
The 1,607-unit complex of several towers, which spans several blocks between Pearl, Frankfort, Gold and Fulton streets, is mostly comprised of two election districts. Each of those districts saw about 32 percent of its votes going to Trump, according to Board of Elections data compiled by DNAinfo New York in a map.
Southbridge Towers lies in the deeper red shapes, just below the Brooklyn Bridge, indicating higher than average Trump support.
In comparison, across Manhattan as a whole, just under 10 percent of votes were cast for Trump. Citywide, Trump received 18.4 percent of votes. And in Lower Manhattan, there were a couple of areas with a bit more Trump support, like Battery Park City, which cast about 16 percent of its more than 12,000 votes in favor of Trump
Several Southbridge residents said they were surprised any of their neighbors would support Trump. Others said instead of shock, they felt deep disappointment.
Longtime resident Paul Hovitz said that while he never felt like there was any heated political debate, or any organized Trump support in the community, sometimes a neighbor would mention that he was voting for Trump. But, he said, it was presented just as a protest to Clinton, who they saw as "crooked."
"For me, I can't really understand how another New Yorker could vote for Trump, a misogynist, a bully, someone who's presented his ideas like a prelude to fascism," said Paul Hovitz, longtime resident. "Maybe for people who are desperate, who don't have work or can't put food on the table, I see why they could be persuaded by Trump's rhetoric, but here, where middle class people are all of a sudden millionaires, to turn around and choose this guy, that just makes no sense."
After Southbridge voted to go private — which some opposed because they wanted to keep affordable housing available for future generations — many residents suddenly became owners of apartments worth upwards of $1 million, homes they'd bought for less than $10,000 under the Mitchell-Lama program decades ago.
Several residents said that they never really heard anyone give outright support to Trump — but there was "anti-Hillary" sentiment.
"I think both candidates were an embarrassment to their parties this year," said John Fratta, another longtime resident. "But I think the people who voted for Trump were just tired of the establishment, tired of lobbyists controlling everything, tired of politicians, tired of politicians forgetting the middle class."
"I think the world is laughing at us after this election, but he's our president now," Fratta added. "We have to support him and hope he brings change that people want."
