H-W Library seeks parking solution

Some programs at the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library are so popular that attendance often exceeds the facility’s available parking and contributes to traffic problems along Broadway. Library officials are working on a solution.

Program schedules may be rearranged at the library in an effort to help ease the parking problem and the heavy traffic flow in front of the facility, on Broadway in Hewlett.

Library Director Susan O. de Scoria said the facility currently has fewer than 75 spaces on its property and, while parking has been an issue for many years, it has become a major problem in the past year.

“Programs will not be cut,” de Scoria said. “We’ll be looking into rearranging our program schedule and considering moving the highly attended film series” — shown at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. — “to just the evening or morning, since the busiest time is midday.”

Adjacent to the library is the Hewlett-Woodmere School District’s Woodmere Education Center parking lot, which can accommodate library visitors on school holidays, evenings and weekends, but those spaces are still not enough, said library board President Ben Eilbott. “The only thing we can do is make sure people use the education center’s lot on Johnson Place, park on the street or walk,” Eilbott said. “Adjusting programs may also help us cut down on the increased use of our facility.”

Martin and Marilyn Geisser, of Woodmere, take out books, see the films and take part in informal discussion groups on Fridays at the library, which, they said, is busiest on film series days. “Every spot in the school lot next to the library says reserved, but I park there anyway,” Marilyn said.

Eilbott said that around 14 percent of the library’s visitors are from outside the district. The facility can restrict borrowing to people from Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Valley Stream, Lynbrook and other areas, he said, but it cannot turn them away.

“[They are] trying to build more parking for the Peninsula Public Library, which will reduce the large numbers of out-of-district visitors our library currently gets,” Eilbott said. “However, even if they do get more parking for their library, that would most likely still be years away.”

PPL officials have a tentative agreement to purchase land from Temple Israel in Lawrence to construct a new library with more parking. Those plans depend on the approval of a subdivision variance that will be filed Dec. 23.

Asked if finding a parking space is a problem, many Hewlett-Woodmere library visitors were quick to say, “Always.” Several also said they attend the library’s diverse programs, lectures and concerts, and wish it had a bigger parking lot.

Until a staff meeting is organized to discuss rearranging the schedule, it will remain the same and the library will continue to offer children’s programs, lectures, film series, concerts and story hours, de Scoria said. “We live in an automobile society,” she added, “and everyone wants to park by the front door.”