She may be America’s most famous freshman congresswoman, but in New York, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a virtual ghost. She has no district office and no local phone number, unlike the state’s three other freshman members. And
it’s unclear whether the 29-year-old lawmaker, who represents the Bronx
and Queens, actually still lives in the Parkchester neighborhood that
has been so closely tied to her rise — even though she won her upset
victory over fellow Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley with accusations that his
home in Virginia made him too Washington-focused to serve his district. Ocasio-Cortez has used her deceased father’s Bronx condo on her voter registration since 2012 . . ..
Her apartment’s next-door neighbor said she had never seen
Ocasio-Cortez. Another neighbor, who has lived down the hall from the
congresswoman’s apartment for the last 40 years, said he’d never seen
her or her boyfriend, Riley Roberts, who has claimed the address as his
own since last spring. “I would have remembered,” said the neighbor when shown a photograph of Ocasio-Cortez. Workers
at Jerry’s Pizzeria, less than a block from her building, and at the
local grocery store said she had never patronized their businesses — and
a server at a nearby taqueria said the congresswoman had only come in
to be filmed by news crews.
