The growing Yeshiva finds a new home at 1414 Caffrey Avenue, a building previously occupied by the yeshiva of Rav Abba Berman, who had relocated to Eretz Yisrael. The building had previously belonged to New York Telephone, serving as a technical facility for the phone company.

Darchei outgrows its building. The Yeshiva finds space at Congregation Shaaray Tefila, then situated on Central Avenue in Far Rockaway.

Rabbi Yaakov Bender joins Darchei as its first seventh grade rebbi. Rabbi Yehuda Frankel leaves Darchei to become the first menahel of the Mirrer Yeshiva Ketana in Brooklyn. A year later, Rabbi Bender is appointed as menahel of Darchei while simultaneously teaching the seventh grade.

Darchei reaches its first graduating class. The hanhala ensures that every student continues to the yeshiva that best suits him.

Darchei introduces its very own Special Education department, a novelty in the yeshiva system at the time. Led by Mrs. Rivka Gutkind, assisted by Rabbi Benzion Kirsch and Mrs. Devorah Druxman, the department offers boys professional services while being integrated into the Yeshiva. Mr. Nechemia Rabenstein becomes its partner and benefactor.

After moving around during its formative years, the time has come to find a permanent home. The Yeshiva procures a vacant lot in the heart of Far Rockaway’s frum community- the perfect spot for the school. A lavish celebration is held at Young Israel of Far Rockaway, marking the milestone with a choir. Plans for this campus on Beach 9th would soon be shelved as the pace of enrollment makes it clear that larger quarters would be needed. Today, Bnos Bais Yaakov is situated on this property.

After ten years of renting space at the former HILI Campus on Beach 17th Street, a stroke of hashgacha leads the Yeshiva to the unlikely scenario of purchasing the campus. The sprawling campus is disproportionately oversized for even the most optimistic forecasts of the Yeshiva’s trajectory, but the day would come when every inch of space would be occupied by the Darchei of the 21 st Century.

Warmed by the joyous flame of Torah. Amid a winter snowstorm just one block from the Atlantic Coast, the boys of Darchei’s new Mesivta Chaim Shlomo warmed their spirits as they danced together with their rabbeim and their benefactor, Mr. Ronald Lowinger. It was an otherwise nondescript ceremony marking the groundbreaking of what was to become the epicenter of Ameilus in Torah, changing the face of Darchei and its surrounding neighborhood forever.

When Dovid Hamelech was mistakenly permitted by Nosson Hanavi to build the Beis Hamikdash, the Ribbono Shel Olam instructed the Navi to hurry back to Dovid Hamelech to rescind. “Dovid is an ish mahir b’melachto,”, the Ribbono Shel Olam said, “he will start building immediately.”

When Mr. Ronald Lowinger initiated the founding of Mesivta Chaim Shlomo, he did not wait to test the waters. He thrust himself into the mesivta project, designing and constructing the most state-of-theart building mesivta bachurim could ever dream of, and having it completed only sixteen months later. During the second year of the new mesivta, Darchei had the good fortune to unveil a most magnificent yeshiva building, the pride of the yeshiva world at the time.

At the beginning of the 1996 school year, just one year after the Mesivta was founded, two classrooms in the new building are in good enough condition to be used. On the first day of Elul zman, the boys march from their original quarters at the Waterview into the new building, still under construction.

The beis medrash building is inaugurated with a marathon of special sedarim. Bachurim and members of the community learn late into the night on Thursday and the entire night on Motzoei Shabbos leading up to the Chanukas Habayis. The boys are young — ninth and tenth graders — but on that day they cross the threshold to a new world of Torah. Their kol Torah is embedded into the very walls that come to echo those sounds for generations. 

Shuttle buses are arranged, providing transportation for shifts throughout the night.

On the Summit of the Mountain. As the pioneer class of Mesivta Chaim Shlomo is set to graduate, Rabbi Bender expands the horizons of his talmidim by founding a beis medrash of their own.

Rav Pinchas Wachsman, then eleventh grade rebbi, becomes the first maggid shiur of Beis Medrash Heichal Dovid.

Later that year, Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky, a marbitz Torah and Rosh Yeshiva from Montreal, is appointed Rosh Yeshiva.

The founding of the Beis Medrash brings a level of chashivus and prestige to the Yeshiva.

In the twenty-five years since Darchei’s founding, the greater Far Rockaway neighborhood has become a vibrant Torah community, with scores of families settling in the area.

Recognizing this trend, Yeshiva Darchei Torah seizes the opportunity to build a new community surrounding the Yeshiva campus.

The time would come when the oncefloundering neighborhood would be revitalized, growing into a flourishing Torah community.

Yeshiva invites Rabbi Mendel Goldberg, one of its founders and a veteran marbitz Torah, to lead the establishment of a new afternoon kollel for Far Rockaway’s mechanchim.

When the building was built eight years earlier, the prevailing attitude was that it was more than adequate for the Mesivta’s growing needs. The exponential growth experienced in its first decade necessitates the expansion of its already spacious and prestigious quarters. Mr. Ronald Lowinger, the benefactor of Mesivta Chaim Shlomo, initiates the ambitious construction project to add two floors to the building.

Around 2005, the Board takes the bold step of pursuing a complete rebuild of the elementary and middle school building.

Burgeoning enrollment forces the Yeshiva to build makeshift classrooms in trailers on campus. They are dedicated by Mr. Ronald Lowinger in memory of Rebbetzin Basya Bender a”h.

Keeping talmidim close to their roots.

Yeshiva establishes an evening kollel in Lakewood for its alumni and provides a stipend for participating yungeleit. The kollel is especially beloved to the Rosh Hayeshiva, who encourages Darchei’s board of directors to keep the kollel as an essential budget item even as cuts are discussed. In 2011, Yeshiva establishes a similar kollel in the Sanhedria neighborhood of Yerushalayim.

During the construction of the new building, the continued growth of Darchei’s enrollment sends planners back to the table to redraw plans to accommodate additional enrollment.

The Yeshiva moves into its new building on December 20, 2010, while preparations are underway for a gala Chanukas Habayis celebration to be held in the spring.

With the Yeshiva bursting at its seams it is no longer feasible for the entire Mesivta, Beis Medrash and Kollel divisions to share the same beis medrash for davening. As a result, the Mesivta starts its own minyan in the Waterview.

An opportunity arises for the Yeshiva to lease campgrounds of its own in the Catskills. After a few years, Darchei purchases the grounds, largely through the generosity of Mr. Rubin Schron, a grandparent of Darchei talmidim. In 2022, shortly after the passing of Mrs. Marta Schron, the Yeshiva dedicates the camp in her memory.

Rabbi Yitzchok Spiegel launches a bi-weekly night seder program for his sixth grade boys at Rabbi Mottel Katz’s shul on Hicksville Road. 

The boys exhibit an unusual thirst for learning with their peers during the evening hours, and the program becomes a sensation in the Five Towns community. 

During the day, all learning takes place in a classroom structure — but at night they get to be yeshiva bachurim, learning with peers on their own. Rabbi Spiegel suggests suitable pairs and monitors the progress of the boys, but the model they follow is of independent learning. Here, the sixth-grade boys get a taste of maturity and they savor every moment. 

The boys find the program so rewarding that the boys of Lawrence and Cedarhurst ask for similar programs to be established in their neighborhoods. 

In response, Rabbi Frischman coordinates what becomes the Yeshiva’s most comprehensive —and by far its most enthusiastic — extracurricular learning seder. 

Seven locations are established throughout the communities of Inwood, Far Rockaway and Bayswater to the west of the 878, and Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Woodmere to the east. Rabbeim are hired, refreshments are served, and young sixth-grade boys become bachurim overnight.