By Dustin Brown
Community Board 5 decided to rename a street near Grover Cleveland High School after a longtime principal despite one member's misgivings over whether the honor was warranted.
The board voted 25 to 9 in favor of naming the stretch of Himrod Street that runs in front of the school after Myron Liebrader, who served as Grover Cleveland's principal for three decades. He died in late January.
Board member Don Passantino lobbied against the renaming at the board's May 14 meeting, reading a letter by Grover Cleveland teacher Victor Gluck that harshly criticized Liebrader's performance as principal.
But others defended Liebrader and praised his tenure at the school.
“He's always fostered a good environment there,” said board member Fred Haller, who has worked with Liebrader as part of the Kiwanis organization. “The Key Club has been great.”
“We always had a very good relationship. I admired him wholeheartedly as an educator and as a person,” said Roslyn Sternlieb, the college advisor at Grover Cleveland for the past 10 years, in a phone interview Tuesday. “He made people principals. He taught people how to be principals.”
At the same meeting, District Manager Gary Giordano announced that a community clean-up initiative he proposed earlier this year had begun with two supervisors and 10 crew members having cleaned litter and graffiti from 15 sites.
Vincent Arcuri, the chairman of the board's transportation committee, presented the results of a traffic study performed by the developers of the Shops at Atlas Park, a high-scale shopping center to be built at the Atlas Terminals on Cooper Avenue and 80th Street in Glendale.
The study recommended putting traffic lights at entrances to the shopping center and creating turning lanes for vehicles going into the complex. A bus could also be rerouted to stop in front of the shops.
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
