Talk Bronx New York

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. is slated to direct the newly created White House Office of Urban Policy, sources familiar with the appointment said last night.

Carrión had been rumored as a contender to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development — a rumor that gained legs, in fact, thanks to Carrión himself. He made headlines last week for telling two New Haven, Conn., groups on Dec. 5 that he was in line to head a Cabinet department.

Instead, the HUD Cabinet post went today to another New Yorker, city housing commissioner Shaun Donovan.

If this is a consolation prize for Carrión, it is one that is near and dear to the president-elect’s heart. Obama campaigned on the creation of an urban policy office, saying it was needed “to ensure that all federal dollars targeted to urban areas are effectively spent on the highest-impact programs.”

And the office’s director will report directly to the president.

Senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett told black columnists last month that the office would better coordinate federal efforts to help America’s cities, and she called the head of the office “really a critical position.” Read more..

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WAITING GAME: Seniors from Kittay Home wait in line to vote at the Jewish Home and Hospital on West Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx on November 4; 2008.

Bronx 

As a long line of wheel chairs strolled into the Jewish Home and Hospital on West Kingsbridge Road, a smiling volunteer lifted a black curtain and let them in to vote.

“I’ve voted for a president who believes in God and life,” said Mary Gamory, 82. “Obama voted two times for abortion.”

Gamory was one of several senior citizens who filed into the voting station to cast their ballots. Most of the voters who filled the polling site were well past the age of retirement - some disabled, and some even on stretchers. Read more..

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SOUTH BRONX, N.Y. - At Validus Preparatory Academy, a new public high school in the poorest congressional district in America, students have kept journals since the early primaries, created election art, studied opinion polls in math classes, designed brochures on the issues, read memoirs by the candidates and even delivered speeches in their stead. And after the principal dashed around to plumbing supply stores for enough PVC pipe to build a voting booth, they got a chance to punch their own electronic ballots in a national mock election for students.

Being so steeped in the presidential race, the students at this predominantly African-American and Hispanic school on Bathgate Avenue are a little on edge about the outcome. They say they are excited about the possibility that Sen. Barack Obama could become the first black person elected president of the United States. (In the mock election results so far, 88 percent of Validus students chose Obama.) But many also admit to some nervousness that it won’t happen. And even if he does win, they’re crossing their fingers that he’ll be up to the job.

“If Obama doesn’t win, it’s a big disappointment,” said Dorian Whyte, 18, who moved to New York City from Jamaica. “And I think if he does win, also, it can be a disappointment, if he doesn’t deliver.”

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