Yeshiva Asks CB Board 12 to Help Open up Parking for Teachers and Eliminate Illegal Dumping on 21st Avenue

By Yehudit Garmaise

The teachers and staff who get to work on Tuesdays and Fridays at 7 am at Barkai Yeshiva at 5302 21st Avenue have nowhere to park because tractor-trailer drivers, who are sleeping in their trucks, have parked along 21st Avenue, next to Washington Cemetery, for the night.

“It’s impossible,” says Michele Terzi, the executive assistant to the head of school and the yeshiva’s Rav. “People have to park very far away, and sometimes if they park illegally, they get tickets while they teach. It is a very tough situation.”

In addition to no parking, Terzi told BoroPark24 that teachers, staff, children, and girls who attend a nearby Bais Yaakov, who walk on 21st Avenue, are faced with “dumping, littering, and so much disgusting garbage. 

“People just dump all sorts of things: cement, beds, mattresses, a boat: it is horrible.”

“These poor kids,” said Glickman, who reported that the truck drivers who park near Washington Cemetery to sleep at night also use the streets as their restrooms.

“To come to school every day and not to find parking and be faced with all this trash is really something,” Terzi said sadly. 

Last night, Ron Glickman, the director of operations at Barkai Yeshiva, asked the members of Community Board 12 to help his quest to switch to evening hours alternate side parking on 20th and 21st Avenues, between 53rd and 57th: a move he hopes would prevent truck drivers from parking in the area and potentially help to prevent illegal dumping.

So far, Glickman, who said he “loves the neighborhood” and wants it to be clean and beautiful, asked the board for its help to switch alternate side parking hours in the area to the nighttime to provide parking for residents and “educators who serve our community during the day, instead of providing free parking for people who are taking advantage of our neighborhood and who are not residents here,” he said.

To request oversight to prevent illegal dumping, Glickman reached out to the NY Sanitation Department, which referred him to his Community Board, whose chairman, Yidel Perlstein, last night told Glickman to mail in his requests so members can consider how to help him.