Ari Spool, a 28-year-old Riggio scholar at The New School for Public Engagement, is running for mayor as a write-in candidate.
“I’m not playing by the rules of the capitalist system and people who don’t play by those rules very rarely make it, especially on their first try,” Spool told the Free Press. “But part of the point of running is to point out the fallacy that exists within it.”
She believes that New York could be a better city if its mayor were a person who came from the general public, instead of “the closed world of Lizard Kings, aka the anointed political aristocracy,” whom she claims would have every multinational corporation owning its own neighborhood, according to her website.
Spool’s proposals include relocating farmer’s markets to courtyards of housing projects where those residents can eat free, as well as changing police uniform colors to a “delicate lilac” and bringing more focus on community cleanliness and the wellbeing of animals.
Spool currently works in The New School archives. Prior to attending The New School, she worked in various professions, ranging from bartending and babysitting, to writing for different publications. She worked at The Stranger, a newspaper that she describes as “Seattle’s Village Voice.” She was also the managing editor at Impose magazine for a time.
“I read Ari as wanting to use running for mayor to make a comment on how alienated people are, especially young people, from politics,” David Scobey, the dean of NPSE says. “ There’s almost a kind of performance art quality about it, which I think is interesting and thoughtful.”
She believes that political activism can create change, which is why she decided to run for mayor. She encourages people to tweet to her and email her about the campaign but she hasn’t accepted any monetary contributions to free politics from money, she says.
Spool, a Queens resident, has focused much of her energies in Brooklyn where she has been giving campaign speeches. She urges voter to not “be a fool, write-in Spool.”
Charlotte is majoring in Journalism + Design at Eugene Lang College and graduated high school in Bamberg, Germany. Her father is a soldier so she grew up moving around a lot. Outside of her interest in journalism, she is an aspiring novelist & screenplay writer who dabbles in acting. Charlotte loves reading, writing, road trips, red wine, videogames, music, sketch comedy and tennis.
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