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When the Rent Laws Don't Apply

Published: May 4, 1997
(Page 3 of 3)

Mr. Elton and his wife, Robin Reisenfeld, an art curator, rented a large one-bedroom with an eat-in kitchen on Lexington Avenue for about $2,500 a month. ''It took four months of looking,'' Mr. Elton said.

Owners, for their part, dismiss the concept of linking affordability to after-tax income. Only a ''strict'' building will insist that a new tenant have an annual income of 50 times the monthly rent, making the rent 24 percent of gross annual income, said Marc Broxmeyer, a principal in Bellmarc Realty, a rental brokerage and management firm. A more liberal management accepts tenants who will pay 30 percent of income, or 40 times the monthly rent, he said. The intermediate position is 45 times the monthly rent, or 26 percent of income.

The citywide vacancy rate in the 575,600 privately owned, unregulated apartments is 5.3 percent, Census Bureau figures show. The vacancy rate in the 1.12 million privately owned regulated rentals is 3.3 percent. For the entire rental stock, which includes public housing and other forms of publicly assisted rentals, and totals 2.02 million units, the rate was 4.01 percent.

Since World War II, when rent regulation embraced the entire housing stock, various partial decontrol steps have been taken. In 1953, one- and two-family houses became exempt from controls upon vacancy. In 1958, the first ''luxury'' decontrol order deregulated about 600 apartments then renting for over $416 a month (or $500 a month if furnished).

In 1964, 5,000 high-rent apartments were decontrolled -- immediately after a vacancy, and on a staggered basis based on family size and characteristics. In 1969, a new rent-stabilization law exempted subsequently built buildings with fewer than six housing units. In 1971 a vacancy decontrol law went into effect, but in 1973 the Legislature withdrew it in the aftermath of charges that some owners had harassed renters out of their regulated units.

In the 90's, the fastest growing segment on the unregulated rental market has been in co-op and condominium buildings. The Census Bureau's 1996 housing and vacancy survey found that the numbers went from 61,400 in 1991 to 95,400 in 1993. Last year, apparently because of the sales pickup, the total number slipped backed to 75,500.

The study also shows a steady upward march in the rest of the deregulated inventory: from 479,100 housing units in 1991, to 486,100 in 1993, to 500,100 last year. Some of this growth came because of the expiration of tax benefits in post-1973 buildings allowed owners to move to unregulated status. Also, there is a constant build-up in new unregulated rentals as new homes are built.

In Manhattan south of 96th Street, only 14 percent of the rental inventory is unregulated, according to figures developed by the Center for Real Estate Policy and Development at New York University Law School, based on last year's Census Bureau survey.

In Queens, 48.7 percent of the inventory is deregulated; in Brooklyn it's 42 percent. Such a large deregulated stock makes rents more competitive, although large regulated apartments will usually have low turnover, and often rent well below their market value even in low-income neighborhoods.

But in New York City, even small percentages stand for large numbers. The center's figures showed that there are about 11,000 households earning over $100,000 a year living in nonregulated rental housing south of 96th Street in Manhattan (and 40,000 in regulated rentals). About 35,000 households with incomes under $100,000 live in nonregulated rentals in the same area (and 245,000 in regulated rentals).

There are more unregulated renter households in Brooklyn than in any other borough -- 208,600. In Queens there are 186,000. These figures account for 42 percent of the total privately owned rental stock in Brooklyn, and 48 percent in Queens. But in Manhattan, only 12.1 percent of the 454,500 privately owned units are unregulated.

ONCE in the apartment, the unregulated tenant finds that the renewal leases are offered at rents that reflect the market at the time. Many unregulated apartments had modest if any rent increases in the early 90's, rental histories from several management firms showed. But in the last year or two increases have been more substantial.

For example, a studio on East 81st Street went up $50 in rent this year, to $1,080, after no increase at all in the $1,000 rent in 1994 and 1995. A two-bedroom apartment on Union Square, shared by three roommates, is at $2,100 a month -- no increase from a year ago, but up from $1,400 in 1993.

In Brooklyn Heights, Todd Armstrong, 31, would have had to pay $70 more a month had he chosen to stay in his 10th-floor one-bedroom on Clinton Street, which he rented for two years with his wife, Rose-Ann, had he remained in New York. He had moved in at a rent of $1,500 a month.

But his employer, a Canadian direct-mail record club, transferred him back to Canada before the lease came due.

''I knew we were going to have to move soon when I rented,'' Mr. Armstrong said by phone from Toronto. ''A one-year lease was great for us. I didn't want to be locked in.''

Photos: ''I would love a regulated apartment, but I like it where I am.'' Ann Caruso (top), a fashion consultant, rents a studio in a lower Fifth Avenue co-op building for $1,000 a month. (Carolyn Schaefer for The New York Times) (pg. 1); ''I can't afford to buy now.' Dr. Jeffrey Perry with wife (bottom), children and his visiting mother. Perrys live in rental building on Central Park West in 90's. Rent on their two-bedroom is about $2,400. (Andrea Mohin/The New York Times) (pg. 1) Chart: ''Looking at New York City's Renters'' shows where tenants in privately owned regulated and unregulated apartments live, and how their incomes vary. (Source: Census Bureau Housing and Vacancy Survey, 1996; Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, N.Y.U. School of Law.) (pg. 6)


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Europe's Ban on Beef From U.S. Held Illegal

Published: July 2, 1997

Confirming an interim finding made in May, the World Trade Organization ruled yesterday that the European Union's ban on imports of hormone-fed American beef was illegal. The European Union said it would appeal. The European executive commission said the panel had ignored scientific evidence that eating hormone-treated beef posed a health risk.

The United States beef industry has long argued that the European ban, imposed in 1988, lacked scientific basis and cost its members $250 million a year in European sales. The appeal is expected to be filed with the trade group in Geneva in late August. A new dispute panel would then have 60 to 90 days to make a final ruling.

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TELEVISION; At 25, Excellence and Big Budgets For a Late Bloomer

Published: November 9, 1997

WHEN HBO TOOK HOME 19 Emmy Awards in September, it was an early birthday present for the cable channel, which turns 25 years old this weekend.

In besting three of the four major broadcast networks (only NBC won more awards, and just barely) and by taking top honors in categories like best original movie for the fifth year in a row and best special, HBO sent the television industry a signal -- unscrambled and strong -- that its position of leadership in the production of original, high-quality television is solid.

The pay channel has long had its admirers, but through much of its early history it was known primarily for showing recycled theatrical movies, boxing matches and stand-up comedy with the dirty words included. HBO's current reputation as a top-notch original programmer is relatively new. Right now, the channel seems to be firing on all cylinders, with cutting-edge comedy series like the much-admired ''Larry Sanders Show'' and the quirky ''Mr. Show With Bob and David,'' as well as ''Oz,'' a new drama series about prison life, and a steady flow of acclaimed original movies.

And some highly promising projects are on tap for 1998, including ''A Bright Shining Lie,'' based on Neil Sheehan's Pulitzer Prize-winning book about Vietnam, and ''From the Earth to the Moon,'' a series of 12 films about space exploration, produced by Tom Hanks and featuring a roster of well-known film directors.

Today, with roughly 23 million subscribers, HBO reaches about one-quarter of the viewing public and, even in a newly competitive cable arena, has a reputation for spending and daring. But its beginnings were inauspicious. The first HBO presentation was a hockey game beamed into about 300 homes in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Nov. 8, 1972, and the channel's first original pay-television entertainment special was the Pennsylvania Polka Festival. Considering that and a longtime reliance on movies from outside sources, how did HBO suddenly vault to the forefront of quality original programming?

''We're now seeing the momentum building from some of the efforts that began a number of years ago,'' said Jeff Bewkes, HBO's chairman. The channel first began placing more emphasis on original programming in the mid-1980's when viewers began turning to home video for movies. Under the leadership of Michael Fuchs, the abrasive longtime HBO chairman who was ousted in 1995, the channel undertook a risky strategy.

''There were real questions as to whether people would subscribe to a premium service to watch an original movie,'' said Andrew Grossman, an editor at Multichannel News, an industry trade publication. But after some initial stumbles -- Mr. Grossman called ''The Far Pavilions,'' a 1984 HBO mini-series, ''a real dog'' -- HBO gradually developed a track record for producing strong original films like ''The Josephine Baker Story'' (1991) and ''Barbarians at the Gate'' (1993), about the battle for control of RJR Nabisco.

Michael Cascio of A&E questions the channel's leadership in the area. ''The perception that HBO is now a leader in original programming is partly an illusion,'' said Mr. Cascio, vice president for programming. ''They do a great job in comedy and original movies, but the staple of their schedule is still boxing, theatrical movies and adult programs.''

Still, by 1993, HBO was challenging the broadcast networks at the Emmys. Its performance this year prompted network executives to suggest that HBO's triumphs were attributable to several competitive advantages: producing fewer shows than broadcasters and therefore spending more on them, aggressively marketing its programming and its image, and enjoying the freedom to be more explicit than networks.

While those factors undoubtedly contribute to HBO's success (the channel is widely considered one of the most savvy self-promoters in television), it is only part of the story. Industry observers and television producers who have worked with the channel cite other characteristics as the real driving force behind HBO's creative surge. One is HBO's willingness to take a chance on unconventional programming and to allow writers and directors to operate with minimal interference.

Mr. Hanks likens the cable channel to the BBC in terms of its willingness to break the mold. ''You can present them with something that goes against all the rules of television, and they don't blanch,'' he said. ''HBO is an odd amalgam of a movie studio and television network.'' What they're driven by, it seems, is the desire to produce something different. And right now, they're putting out some very diverse and pretty bodacious stuff.''

HBO executives say that their approach to programming is inextricably linked to the most obvious factor: the absence of advertising on the channel, which fundamentally distinguishes HBO's mandate from that of commercial networks and may be the single greatest reason HBO's programming tends to differ from broadcast network fare.

For one thing, it means the channel is not completely beholden to ratings. Though HBO does measure ratings, ''a program can be considered a success even if it is low-rated,'' said Mr. Bewkes. A typical prime-time HBO offering is watched by 8 to 10 percent of subscribers, which is roughly equivalent to a rating of 4 or 5 for a network show. (That would be grounds for cancellation on ABC, CBS or NBC.)

Chris Albrecht, HBO's president for original programming, noted that HBO tended to select shows that might appeal to particular audience segments. Not all of that niche programming is admirable. To draw late-night male viewers, HBO relies on series that can be voyeuristic, like ''Real Sex'' and ''Taxicab Confessions.''

Another advantage of not having advertisers is that HBO can take on subjects, like AIDS, racism and abortion, without worrying about losing advertiser support. HBO made ''And the Band Played On,'' the 1993 film based on Randy Shilts's book about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, only after both NBC and ABC had passed.

In fact, ''HBO purposely picks volatile, controversial subjects to focus on because it is a way to get attention,'' said Kay Koplovitz, president of the USA Network, a competing channel on basic cable. According to Ms. Koplovitz, HBO has been masterly at using issue-oriented programming to draw media attention, garner awards and ''build a mythology around themselves,'' she said.

That unflinching approach to programming also serves as a magnet to attract Hollywood talent seeking an outlet for ''risky'' projects. Mr. Hanks, who noted that he ''never considered anyone other than HBO'' for his ''Earth to the Moon'' project, said that the channel was now seen as a place where filmmakers could experiment in ways that were usually not possible with broadcast networks or major film studios.

AND WHEN CREATIVE TALENT comes to HBO, it is given more of a free hand. Mr. Albrecht said that artists were often surprised when he told them, in development meetings, that they were free to pursue their creative vision on a project. ''They don't hear that very often,'' he said.

Tom Fontana, a co-producer of the NBC series ''Homicide,'' who also produces the HBO series ''Oz,'' said there was a striking difference between the creative environment at HBO and at the networks. ''Putting a quality TV drama on a commercial network is like pushing a boulder up a mountain,'' Mr. Fontana said. ''At HBO, it's more like being carried up the mountain.''

It also doesn't hurt that the channel has deep pockets. For ''A Bright Shining Lie,'' HBO is spending about $12 million, shooting on location in Southeast Asia. And for ''Earth to the Moon'' the tab is expected to reach an astronomical (and record) $65 million. However, that level of investment also brings added pressure for results.

That's not the only pressure facing HBO. Its heavy expenditures have been paid for by solid growth in its subscriber base, but experts say that growth, which was fueled by the satellite television boom, is expected to taper off. ''Their big challenge is to keep growing in a market that is now mature,'' said Larry Gerbrandt, a television-industry analyst with Paul Kagan & Associates.

At the same time, HBO faces increased competition from other cable channels, particularly TNT and Showtime, which have stepped up their own commitments to original programming. ''There was a time when HBO's programming was the only thing worth watching on cable, but that's not the case anymore,'' said Mr. Gerbrandt.

Asked about the future, Mr. Bewkes displayed the kind of confidence that is part of HBO's corporate personality and sometimes irks its competitors. ''We've now reached the point,'' he said, ''where the top talent is coming to us.''

Photos: COMING SOON Bryan Cranston in ''From the Earth to the Moon,'' due in 1998. (HBO); LATEST EMMY ''Miss Evers' Boys,'' a television movie with Alfre Woodard. (HBO); 1993 EMMY James Garner in ''Barbarians at the Gate.'' (HBO); HIT SERIES Garry Shandling as a talk-show host in the HBO sitcom ''The Larry Sanders Show.'' (HBO); EARLY TRY Ben Cross in ''The Far Pavilions,'' a 1984 mini-series that critics didn't praise. (Metromedia Producers)


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Edition: U.S. / Global

Getting the Bugs Out

By Michael Upchurch
Published: March 8, 1998

By Victor Pelevin.

Translated by Andrew Bromfield.

179 pp. New York:

Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $22.

Political allegory, antic fantasy, willful enigma: Victor Pelevin's latest book to appear in English is a little of all three. Vivid in its essence yet puzzling at times in its detail, this Russian novel is a slippery piece of work -- more so, say, than Pelevin's ''Omon Ra,'' which describes a highly irregular Soviet space-race episode and then spells out the incriminating truths behind it.

Pelevin withholds any such easy explanations in ''The Life of Insects.'' Instead, as a commentary on a volatile, shape-shifting interval in recent Russian history, the novel constantly shifts shape itself, inducing uncertainties in the reader's mind that are keenly shared by the book's main characters. Indeed, these uncertainties run so deep that they routinely put the characters' very species into doubt, as they seemingly change from moment to moment. With this absurdist approach, Pelevin delves deeply into the illusory lure of political ideology, the sense of loss that occurs when this ideology fails and the way even yearned-for social changes can undermine the essence of individual and collective identity.

Put in these terms, ''The Life of Insects'' may sound like a political lecture. But given its lively cast of characters -- including Marina, an airborne future ant queen who lands on a Black Sea boardwalk in a denim skirt and red stiletto heels, and Mitya and Dima, two philosophizing moths who engage in a literally cliffhanging life-or-death battle with a bat -- it's clearly no ordinary diatribe.

Set in a semiderelict seaside resort, the book paints a picture of historical and ontological limbo. The rules by which Pelevin plays are quickly established. Ants, moths, dung beetles, hemp bugs, cicadas and a very sexy fly named Natasha all indulge in swift and casual metamorphoses into human form and back again -- or, more mysteriously, from one insect form to another. Although Kafka isn't mentioned by name, the prospect of turning into a cockroach prompts ''a cold shudder'' in at least one character. Debates on ''insect rights'' are held. The menace of insecticide is addressed.

A wheeling-and-dealing trio of investors -- two Russians, Arthur and Arnold, and one American, Sam -- get things going. Sam is eager to sound out the region's business possibilities. Arthur and Arnold just as eagerly push its attractions, announcing, rather oddly, that along with ''lots of fruit and grapes,'' the Crimea offers ''a bit more hemoglobin and glucose'' than Moscow. When they offer to take him on a guided tour, Sam cannily resists: ''Oh, no, no special Potemkin villages.'' He would rather just look around for himself -- and, with that, he backflips off a precipitous balcony and wings it.

Sam, it turns out, is a globe-hopping mosquito. He has been to Mexico, Africa and Japan. More impressively -- to a prospective lover, anyway -- he has been to France. When asked what he was doing there, he says, ''The usual thing, sucking blood.'' It must be the capitalist in him speaking, for at this point he has taken human form. French blood is one thing; Russian blood is something else altogether (''What an emotional whirlwind! What a torrent of feeling!''), and it puts Sam constantly off balance.

Beneath the novel's capricious surface is a creeping feeling of disorientation and doubt, shared by author and characters alike. Mitya the moth, pining for a light that used to be, puts it best: ''For me, it's as though there used to be something in life that was amazingly simple and more important than anything else, and then it disappeared and we've only just realized it ever existed. And it turns out that absolutely everything we ever used to want only made sense because there was this most important thing.''

The insect plights of Pelevin's not-quite-insect characters have an instinctive rightness about them, whether they're wistful moths looking for a light to follow or capitalist mosquitoes seeking out another bloodsucking opportunity. One of the novel's finest passages describes a cicada's chance discovery of the modest creature comforts -- a bed, a television, a friend's company, ''a bottle or two of vodka'' -- that keep him going as he spends years digging through the ''soft Russian loam,'' awaiting the moment when he can emerge on the earth's surface to ''trill his song.'' When he does find his voice, it's not entirely surprising that he sings of ''the fact that life had passed in vain, and that it could only pass in vain, and there was no point in weeping over it.'' The human parallels are obvious: who hasn't, at moments, felt as small and as purposeless?

Although there is no single plot line, the novel's chapters interlock in curious ways as characters leap from insect scale to human scale and back again. Some characters absent-mindedly rub out others; some are rescued from harm by former insects who haven't forgotten their origins. As Dima remarks, ''Life is structured very strangely.'' The same might be said in praise of this ever-inventive novel.

But there are some stumbling blocks: the humor in a dope-smoking episode is redolent of a Cheech and Chong sketch. And topical references that may not mean much to an American reader pepper the text. What are we to make of the repeated mentions of Magadan, former administrative center of the Soviet political prison system, especially when they're couched in such whimsical terms? Some notes might have helped.

Occasionally Andrew Bromfield's translation can feel shaky as it mixes British and American vernacular or serves up dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a Hong Kong action movie. (''God! What a life I've been living. It's all wrong!'' ''Calm down. Us, too. But don't get hysterical about it.'') Most of the time, however, Bromfield conveys the book's sudden shifts in perspective with clarity and ease, making Pelevin's lyrical caprice come alive in the process: ''Night in the Crimea is astonishingly beautiful. As the sky darkens, it rises away from the earth and the stars are clear and bright. . . . The straight, narrow cypresses seem like columns left behind from buildings demolished long ago; the sea murmurs exactly the same way it always has; and before you rolls your sphere of dung.''

Yes, well, that's the way it is when you're a dung beetle, no matter what regime you're living under. Pelevin's triumph is to make insect aspirations and anxiety feel so fragile and so soberingly universal.


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Business Improvement District At Grand Central Is Dissolved

Published: July 30, 1998
(Page 2 of 2)

City officials and business people who control other business improvement districts said the directive raised unresolved questions. Mr. Lhota, who acknowledged that the current level of assessments being paid by property owners in the Grand Central District would exceed the amount necessary to pay off its bond debt, said the city would return some portion of the assessments to the property owners after they are collected by the Department of Finance.

He also said the city would insure that ''level of service to property owners and tenants in the Grand Central area is not reduced.''

Executives at other districts, citing their fears of angering City Hall, declined to comment publicly on the Mayor's action. But privately, some said that the move raised a variety of difficult legal and financial questions. One was whether the Grand Central group could continue to operate, at least temporarily, relying on bank accounts that it had already filled through its bond sales and prior assessments on property owners.

Some questioned whether Mr. Biederman and other directors of the district might challenge the city in court, maintaining that it was denying them their right to operate a public-spirited, nonprofit organization.

Although city officials declined to provide details, they said the decision to deny a contract to the Grand Central group came after months of negotiations. Although the group's five-year contract with the city had expired at the end of June, they said Mr. Biederman and his board had been granted a one-month extension. During that period, ''BID officials were unresponsive to city officials,'' said the statement from the Department of Business Services.

After the district's contract expires tomorrow, the statement said, Mr. Biederman and his board had been ordered to provide the city with a ''full financial accounting of its assets and liabilities and deliver all books, records and accounts'' to the city within 10 days.

Mr. Lhota said one possible way to sustain the neighborhood services that have been provided by the Grand Central group would be to reconstitute it under new management, but added that he knew of no one who was prepared to do so.

One detail of the Grand Central group's finances that has long been a source of controversy among business people and city officials is Mr. Biederman's salary, which the city's formal statement yesterday listed at a combined total of $335,000, plus $30,000 a year in health benefits, from the three district he heads.

One executive involved in another district, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said the reason for the apparent collapse in negotiations between the Grand Central group and the city was that an extension of the group's contract would have required Mr. Biederman to step down.


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Edition: U.S. / Global

Going From Desks to Mean Streets

Published: December 17, 1998

Like 50 to 100 other normally desk-bound day-shift police officers, Michael H. Hilliard showed up for the 5:39 roll call yesterday afternoon and was soon dispatched to the streets.

''We've shut down the administrative offices for 30 days,'' said Officer Hilliard, an administrative officer. ''We have 296 homicides, and the goal is to complete the year with no more.''

Standing before the men and women, Lieut. Donald E. Healy urged them to go after the drug dealers, who are responsible for three-quarters of those homicides. ''Shut them down and bring them in.''

With officer clerks and computer operators assisting regular officers assigned to high-crime areas, the department is hitting the streets, following the threads that lead from street-corner questionings to arrests for sales of $10 rocks of crack cocaine to whatever it is that makes this city one of the nation's most murderous.

Baltimore, like other cities around the nation, has experienced a decline in crime. But throughout the 1990's, this city has defied the trend in one category of violent crime: homicide. Throughout the 1990's, it has recorded 304 to 353 homicides a year, three-quarters of them drug-related.

Federal crime statistics show the Baltimore area, with 2.5 million residents, with a rate of 14.2 killings last year for every 100,000 residents. The rate is far above those of most other big cities, including New York and its suburbs, where the rate last year was 9.3.

So early last week, Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier, who previously assigned his troops more overtime during the Christmas shopping season, started what he called an ''enhanced holiday deployment.'' He has shut down most administrative work for a month and assigned desk-bound officers to the streets and directed the regulars to concentrate on the high-crime areas.

''We're going to make every effort we can to bring in the crime rate as low as we can,'' Commissioner Frazier said. ''We're bringing in everyone who we can wring out of a non-enforcement assignment. I did 15 hours yesterday, and I will be on the street tonight.''

But even with the special deployment, the prospects of keeping the number of homicides under 300, the department's goal, are grim. Through October, it recorded 259 homicides, 5 more than by the same time last year, when 310 were recorded for the full year. Lately, the pace has continued, with a homicide a day.

On Monday, the department reported No. 295. A man with multiple stab wounds was found partly covered with leaves in the back of a row house. On Tuesday, a woman in the trunk of a car that had been intentionally set on fire became No. 296. Thirty minutes after midnight today, No. 297, a man in his late 20's, was found shot in the back and sprawled on a sidewalk.

After roll call, Officers Warren Smith and Tim Palmer, each married, each father of one child, both sinewy, proud members of Baltimore's SWAT team, hurried off in their new unmarked cruiser. They were given a single assignment, to seek out the furtive gestures and quick transactions of drug dealing.

Twice tonight, with Officer Smith at the wheel, they turned their vehicle into a rocket of siren and light. But mostly they wove their way through the desolate streets of largely boarded-up row houses.

''Time out!'' they heard someone shout from a cluster of six people gathered at a corner as the well-recognized white Ford Crown Victoria approached. The six, indistinguishable by sex or age in their loose-fitting, hooded parkas, ambled off, hands in pockets. The officers left them alone.

The officers headed across North Avenue and into the dark side streets. A woman about 50 crossed in front of them.

''What you got in your pocket?'' Officer Smith asked, getting out of the car with Officer Palmer.

''Nothing,'' she told them. Nonchalantly, she said she was on her way to buy something.

''Who are you dealing with?'' Officer Smith asked

''Heavy,'' she replied, a man named Heavy. Heavy is nowhere around. The officers made note of his name and moved on.

They spotted a group outside a corner store. Corner stores -- delis, take-out food stores, convenience stores -- are the only commercial establishments along the streets off the thoroughfares, like North and Pennsylvania Avenues.

''My pet peeve is the corner store,'' Officer Smith said. ''The stores give them an excuse to be on the corner. If you see people in the store, they're not buying anything.''

They told one cluster of young men to pull up their shirts, a way to find if they were carrying guns. Or they called, ''Show me your hands,'' a way of finding drugs. ''You look for somebody making a quick movement,'' Officer Palmer said.

The law requires the police to ask before frisking anyone, but usually permission is granted.

In front of a store on a corner on Edmonson Avenue, they spotted a transaction. Slowly, Officer Smith followed one of the people onto a side street. He turned on his search light and pulled up to a young woman in gray sweat pants, a blue parka and a gray knit hat.

Frightened, just 17, she held a marijuana cigar, evidently not having learned to surreptitiously let it drop. They stood near a gray brick wall with ''R.I.P'' scrawled on it and the names Jeneen, Fade, Mark, Sean, Tish, Lance, Oscar and Reggie -- all slain.

Officer Palmer asked what she was handing the man at the corner. ''I didn't give him nothing,'' she said, still holding the cigar. ''Fifty cents. I swear I gave him 50 cents.''

They took the cigar and asked to go through her pockets. They found two tiny bags of marijuana and called a patrol wagon to bring her in.

After she was booked and briefed, she smiled easily and innocently, saying she is in the 10th grade, wants to be a lawyer or a basketball player and works in a Burger King part time. She will be held in a cell block for juveniles until her mother comes to get her.

''She's still reachable,'' Officer Palmer said. ''I'd rather lock up the adult who sold it to her.''

Still, she could be a link in the chain that leads to Baltimore's many homicides. As part of her debriefing, and those of the 10 other people arrested in the night, Detective Irvin Bradley of the homicide squad, suggested, without promising, that in return for leniency in court, they steer him to the guns and the dealers.

Detective Bradley is particularly interested in leads to ''stick-up boys.''

''They rob the drug dealers,'' he said. ''These drug dealers are not going to call the police and say, 'He stuck me up.' They handle it themselves, and the way they handle it is to kill them.''

He also wants locations of ''stash houses,'' places near the sites of their sales where dealers hide guns so they won't be caught with them and can still get to them. By late last night, he said he had collected the addresses of four.

Photos: Officers at a briefing at the Central District Station in Baltimore, which has defied a downward trend in violent crime nationwide. Baltimore's police force has sent officers in desk-bound jobs to the streets, following the thread from drugs to murder. Above, Police Officer Warren Smith scanned a street looking for any suspicious activity on Tuesday evening. Below, Officer Tim Palmer frisked a potential drug buyer. (Photographs by Shana Raab for The New York Times)


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Edition: U.S. / Global

McDonald's Corp. Betting That Coffee Is Britain's Cup of Tea

Published: March 28, 1999

Forget the morning ''cuppa.''

Increasing numbers of Britons, forsaking their traditional cup of breakfast tea, are lining up at coffee bars to order the likes of a semi-skimmed cappuccino with a double shot of espresso.

Seeking to cash in on that trend, McDonald's has become the latest American heavyweight to enter the market. The hamburger giant has purchased Aroma Ltd., a chain of 23 shops that sell coffee and sandwiches in a lively atmosphere of recorded Caribbean music and bright yellow and orange decor.

The deal, announced on Thursday, is reportedly worth between $16 million and $24 million. It is the first time McDonald's has invested in anything but a hamburger chain outside the United States.

Tony coffee bars have proliferated in Britain in the past three years, particularly in London and the more cosmopolitan southeast. They appeal to a young, professional crowd and reflect a change toward a faster-paced lifestyle.

''In Britain, tea has always been the big drink -- it's a very homely drink, much more than coffee,'' said Sara Jenkins, a marketing assistant with Pret a Manger, a coffee and snack chain that aims to serve each customer in less than 90 seconds. ''People associate English afternoon cream tea with their granny.''

Britain's first coffee bars cropped up some 40 years ago, many of them run by immigrants from Italy and Greece. Groups of mods, the stylish youths who built a 1960's cult around motor scooters and amphetamines, gathered at them much as American teen-agers spent long evenings at drive-ins and pizza joints.

Costa Ltd., one of the first British coffee chains, was started by two Italian brothers. Aroma was founded in 1991 by a Swiss businessman frustrated by the difficulty of finding a good cup of coffee.

Starbucks blazed a trail across Britain last year, when it paid about $83 million for the Seattle Coffee Company's chain of 56 coffee shops.

Before purchasing Aroma, McDonald's had bought a stake in only one other business outside its traditional fast-food fare -- a restaurant chain in Denver called Chipotle Mexican Grill. The company expects Aroma to complement its strengths in family-style fast food with a more adult-oriented fare, said Eddie Bensilum, a company representative.

For some, the new wave of British coffee bars offers what sociologists call a ''third place'' -- a place other than home or the workplace where people can meet and relax.

''The traditional British pub has been at the center of society as a meeting place, but it's a male society,'' said Andrew Barrett, a director with APAX Partners, the former majority owner of Aroma. ''The coffee shop is a lot less threatening for women.''

At a downtown Aroma shop, 34-year-old Lizzie Baldwin was polishing off a cappuccino with her 12-year-old son, Joshua.

''It's more European,'' she said. ''People like some place they can just drop in and spend 20 minutes or an hour, read the newspaper and have a coffee.''

Despite a stiff price of $1.60 to $2.00 for a small cup of black coffee, shops in downtown London do a brisk business each weekday morning. At some of them, cappuccino has become the most popular hot drink.

Starbucks employees still laugh about the day they opened their first shop in Manchester, Britain's second-largest city, said Lisa Doncaster, a store manager in London.

''The first customer came in,'' she said, ''and all he wanted was a cup of tea. Which he got, of course.''


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THEATER; Quirk After Quirk in Side-by-Side Festivals

Published: August 15, 1999

IN the fractious world of Off Off Broadway, it was bound to happen. The Fringe has developed a fringe.

Beginning Wednesday, the downtown theater scene will be witness to the opening of two simultaneous festivals, each based on the Lower East Side and each purporting to represent the rich variety among the city's littlest and least-known theater troupes.

This year's newcomer is the Pure Pop Theater Festival, which will kick off just hours after the first show of the New York International Fringe Festival, now in its third summer.

Pure Pop's organizers promise to match the Fringe quirk for quirk, with programming that includes a rarely seen temperance play (''Ten Nights in a Barroom'' by William Pratt), an 18th-century Japanese epic (''The Battles of Coxinga'' by Chikamatsu Monzaemon) and several shows with titles not suitable for a family newspaper. All in all, Pure Pop promises to stage nearly 60 productions over seven weeks (through Oct. 3), at sites ranging from the Queens Theater in the Park to Theater 4S, a 15-seater in an East Village apartment.

For its part, the Fringe will present some 150 productions in 12 days, through Aug. 29, an ambitious schedule that includes theater, dance and performance art. Here, too, some of the titles suggest a deep immersion in the odd: ''Urinetown,'' an original musical, and ''Jinkies,'' a series of Scooby Doo episodes based on the television cartoon. There is also a revival of the Robert Wilson-Tom Waits-William S. Burroughs rock opera ''The Black Rider,'' which was staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1995.

Does downtown really need all this? Aaron Beall, the founder of Pure Pop, answers: ''Nobody's saying to Lincoln Center, 'Hey, too many festivals, guys! Too much creativity! You've got to stop it! Why do you need the Mozart? You just did Schubert! Enough with the Mendelssohn!' ''

Pure Pop and the Fringe have a shared history. Mr. Beall (pronounced Bell) was a founder of the Fringe, but earlier this year he had a falling out with a co-founder, John Clancy, and left to start Pure Pop. (Mr. Beall is also the founder of Todo Con Nada, a storefront theater on Ludlow Street, and Mr. Clancy is also the artistic director of the downtown theater group Present Company).

Mr. Beall's departure led to rumors -- and news reports -- of a vitriolic crisis in the heart of the city's Off Off Broadway community. But Mr. Clancy and Mr. Beall, who are both 35, say there is little animus between them. They ascribe the fight to personality differences and some grumbling over dividing box office receipts. Each man's company lost money on the two previous Fringe festivals.

''When times are tight, a little bit of money gets to be very important,'' Mr. Clancy said at the Theatorium, the Fringe's headquarters and mainstage on Stanton Street. ''But Aaron and I are getting along.''

What the two men can also agree on is that their festivals represent only a part of what is going on Off Off Broadway, which many on the scene say is in the midst of a period of remarkable popularity, economic growth and structural change.

''I think there's an influx of extraordinary people working in the scene right now,'' said the playwright Mac Wellman, a stalwart of downtown theater. ''And a lot of them don't want to make it in the traditional way.''

Indeed, many in the new generation of theater artists and downtown producers have begun to exhibit the professional trappings of larger institutions: press agents, marketing plans and six-figure annual budgets. The Fringe and Pure Pop are no exception: the Fringe has a budget of $180,000; Pure Pop about a third of that. Mr. Beall, in particular, is something of a media hound, talking up his festival with the showy optimism of a circus barker. ''It's the beginning of festival season,'' he said recently, smiling over a plate of sushi near Todo Con Nada. ''You got to make the scene.''

While Mr. Beall was with the Fringe, he aggressively promoted the festival in radio and television interviews; with Pure Pop, he has taken to dyeing his hair -- blue, most recently -- for effect. He is also pushing Pure Pop in interviews and on the Internet as the first season in a ''99-year plan'' to save Off Off Broadway from what he complains is invasive real estate development.

Mr. Beall's fears aside, much of downtown theater is blooming. Critical praise has begun to follow young companies like Elevator Repair Service and playwrights like Richard Maxwell, the author of ''House.'' That play toured Europe this summer after good reviews in New York; Elevator Repair Service's ''Total Fictional Lie'' will tour five American cities this fall and winter.

At home, Target Margin's acclaimed 1998 production of ''Mamba's Daughters'' was the headliner at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., in May. The chamber musical ''Running Man,'' a March production at HERE in SoHo, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, while the winner, ''Wit,'' had its New York premiere at the 99-seat MCC Theater on West 28th Street.

Commercial success stories have been more hit and miss. Downtown shows like ''Shakespeare's R&J,'' which began at the tiny Expanded Arts theater on Ludlow Street, had a long commercial run Off Broadway, as did ''Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,'' which began on Off Off Broadway. On the other hand, last season's commercial transfers of the Adobe Theater Company's ''Duet!'' and Premium Bob's ''Manhunt'' were not successful in larger auditoriums.

Downtown theater isn't even always downtown anymore. ''Three Virgins,'' developed by the experimental company Collapsable Giraffe, reclaimed Show World, a former sex superstore on Eighth Avenue near 42d Street, as a theatrical space.

Such activity has jumped the rivers, too, spreading to hot neighborhoods like Dumbo in Brooklyn, where the experimental troupe Gale Gates et al. has its own 40,000-square-foot performance space. An additional large performance space and gallery, Smack Mellon, has opened in an old spice factory.

While the technical definition of Off Off Broadway is any theater with less than 100 seats, the term is also emblematic of the artistic standards of a movement that was born in the early 1960's. Those criteria -- being noncommercial, experimental and, in the words of the director Richard Caliban, ''off the radar'' -- are still embraced by a majority of downtown theater artists. But the term has also had its less flattering associations.

''To me, when I started, it seemed Off Off Broadway was synonymous with bad,'' said Jeremy Dobrish, the artistic director of the Adobe Theater. ''It was like, 'I'm going to go, it's going to be hot, it's going to be cramped, the people won't know what they're doing, it will be pretentious and alienating, and I'm not going to have a good time.'' But, he said, downtown theater in New York is ''different now,'' more like ''the independent film scene.''

Conversations with some 20 downtown theater artists supported the notion that changes were afoot, though some said the reasons might be more personal than professional.

''I think we were all just sick of playing for our friends,'' said Jim Findlay, the co-artistic director of Collapsable Giraffe. ''I'd rather have an audience of 25 people I don't know than 40 friends.''

Another factor that has had an effect is dwindling Government support. ''This generation of artists came up not expecting to get a grant,'' said Mark Russell, the executive director of Performance Space 122 in the East Village. ''All these guys came of age after the N.E.A. Four and the Karen Finley episode. You say Karen Finley, and they have a blank look on their faces. It's like Kennedy getting shot. They don't remember it.'' (In 1990, Ms. Finley and three other performance artists had their Federal grants revoked by the National Endowment for the Arts after conservative Congressmen objected to using government money for what was deemed by some to be obscene art. )

The new climate, Mr. Clancy said, has made Off Off Broadway more self-sufficient: ''The 1990's are really a time when people started thinking in a businesslike fashion -- if you're going to keep your doors open, you're going to have to earn money. And part of that is understanding that you're in the service industry. and that that goes not only for the art but also the conditions.'' In short, cramped basements and creaky folding chairs are out; air-conditioning and comfortable seating are in.

But does all this spit and polish mean that downtown theater has lost its edge? One elder statesman said he had found indications of trouble. ''I haven't seen anyone walking out angrily like they did from my work,'' said Richard Foreman, the experimental director. ''That's a bad sign.''

Young downtown types scoff at the thought that they have gone soft. And, to be sure, gratuitous nudity, violence and simulated kinky sex can still be found in a number of shows. Some say, though, that the content of downtown theater work has become more populist -- more easily accessible and less cynical. But part of that, said David Latham of the Premium Bob troupe, has to do with ''shock fatigue.''

''Who hasn't seen someone urinate onstage?'' asked Mr. Latham.

Even without a Finley-style controversy, directors agree that Government grants for small companies have diminished during the 1990's, while private support has improved and corporate support has dwindled.

David Herskovits, the artistic director of Target Margin, said the losses in corporate support have been ''particularly disgraceful,'' considering the money being made in the 1990's.

But what of the boom? Has there been a trickle down?

Off Off Broadway producers are divided. Some say that New York's economic resurgence has caused nothing but headaches, raising rents and production costs. Dixon Place, a performance space on the Bowery, recently announced it would have to move because its rent had been increased; other theater spaces and companies are still operating hand-to-mouth.

''What Off Off Broadway means,'' said Jeff Sugg, a lighting designer, ''is you still ask if you're getting paid.''

Others say the boom has made downtown fashionable and safe again, a comfortable place for monied audiences and producers to seek out new work.

Then there are the peripheral benefits. ''There are literally 175 new condos being built next door to us and they were expensive,'' said Michelle Stern, a co-founder of Gale Gates. ''So we have an audience literally right next door that walks by every day.''

The influx of young people into the city is also being felt. ''Broadway is always talking about trying to get a young audience, but I go to see one of these shows at HERE, or the Ontological, or the Flea, and I feel like I'm clubbing,'' said Stephen Nunns, a director and an editor for American Theater magazine. ''It's the most beautiful audience I've ever seen.''

The roster of popular downtown theater spaces has expanded in the last few years. Newer ones like Access Theater in TriBeCa and the Present Company's Theatorium on the Lower East Side are home to a steady stream of work of their own as well as that of renters. The same is true of theaters like HERE, the SoHo Rep and the Workhouse Theater (now known as the Flea Theater). Of the older performance spaces, P.S. 122 on First Avenue and Ninth Street, the Ontological at St. Mark's Church and Second Avenue, the Ohio Theater and the Performing Garage, both on Wooster Street in SoHo, are still vibrant breeding grounds for young artists.

And look at them come. ''More and more training schools churn out more and more actors who arrive in New York City,'' said Mr. Beall of the Pure Pop Festival. ''And it becomes harder and harder for younger theater artists to carve out a spot.''

Which is where, ironically, the Fringe Festival comes in. The Fringe's role is to ''provide access and opportunity to talent without reputation and without resources and without cash and without experience,'' said Mr. Clancy. But some larger companies, he added, have also begun to look at the Fringe as a place to present work in its early stages.

At the same time, Mr. Clancy acknowledged, most of the better-established companies have little motivation to perform at his festival, where several companies share the same theater and where turnaround time between different shows can be as little as 15 minutes. ''For a company like Elevator Repair Service,'' he said, ''is this going to serve them? I don't know.''

John Collins, the artistic director of Elevator Repair Service, said: ''All these festivals are working at the very basic level, and though I probably shouldn't say this, some of it can be really awful stuff. But that's a great kind of evidence that companies are still generating raw material, and the festivals keep trying to give the work a chance.''

For their part, those involved in downtown theater seem to respect the Fringe. ''I asked someone about the Fringe and they said, 'It's cheap, and we get a venue for our play,' '' Mr. Herskovits said. ''And I said, ''Fantastic. That's all you need.' ''

Not, of course, that they don't have a few suggestions: more international programming for one, and oh, yes, more good stuff. Mr. Clancy said he's working on it.

New York International Fringe Festival tickets are $11. Information and tickets: (212) 420-8877. Also: www.FringeNYC.org. Most Pure Pop Theater Festival tickets are $9. Information and reservations: (877) 932-4222. Also: www.purepop.org.

Photos: Bill Heinmen and Tanya Perez in ''Beach Blanket Bacchae,'' opening Aug. 26 as part of the Pure Pop Theater Festival. (Ellis Anescott)(pg. 6); The three-year-old Fringe Festival, run by John Clancy, above left, and the new Pure Pop Festival, led by Aaron Beall, right, go head to head starting Wednesday. At left, a scene from ''Time/Bomb,'' part of the Fringe. (Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times); (Su Polo); (Nancy Siesel/The New York Times)(pg. 3)


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GOOD EATING; Off the Beaten Track In TriBeCa

Published: November 21, 1999

(212) 334-2274; 62 Laight Street, between Hudson and Greenwich Streets; $$$; cigarette smoking in the lounge; all major credit cards.

A mysterious-looking fish tank greets you as you squeeze in the front door of this updated brasserie, which has a maritime feel. The main stand-alone menu is a new American seafood tour. The raw bar consists of Tuckernuck littlenecks, gulf shrimp, New Zealand langoustine, and oysters like Maine belons, Bissell Cove and Blue Point. Entrees include honey-ginger octopus with roasted artichokes; grilled sea scallops with vegetable tagine; pan-roasted halibut with Alsacienne chowder; and roasted whole black bass with pistou and lemon. Pecan-crusted rack of lamb and Jamaican jerk chicken are alternatives to seafood. (Diner's Journal: 10/22/99)

NEXT DOOR NOBU *** [Rating: Three Stars]

(212) 334-4445; 105 Hudson Street, at Franklin Street; $$; no smoking; all major credit cards.

The fish is fresh and fantastic at Next Door Nobu, the more casual, less expensive offshoot of the celebrated Nobu; the menu places an emphasis on raw shellfish, whole fish for an entire table and noodles. Noodle dishes include seafood udon, a thick wheat noodle served with assorted seasonal seafood in a light broth; cha soba with tempura, shrimp and vegetable tempura served over green tea soba and broth; and inaniwa with oshitashi, served hot with steamed spinach and light broth. Main dishes include anticucho, Peruvian-style spicy chicken skewer; rock shrimp tempura with ponzu or creamy spicy sauce; squid pasta; black cod with miso; and eggplant with miso. (Review: 12/23/98)

(212) 233-0507; 145 West Broadway, at Thomas Street; $$; smoking at the bar; all major credit cards.

The Odeon is still a fine example of an American bistro. It is unpretentious and comfortable, and it feels as if it is filled with artists. Current starters include a crab cake with ginger vermouth sauce; country pate with onion marmalade and cornichon; and grilled portobello mushrooms with arugula and caramelized balsamic vinegar. Entrees include grilled salmon with julienned root vegetables, new potatoes and lemon truffle oil vinaigrette; seared tuna with cannellini beans; ravioli with ricotta cheese, spinach and pizzaiola sauce; sauteed calf's liver with roasted onion and bacon Sherry-wine vinegar sauce; and risotto with duck confit and sun-dried cranberries. (Diner's Journal: 2/13/98)

(212) 966-9983; 281 West Broadway, between Canal and Lispenard Streets; $$; no smoking; American Express.

The gnocchi served at this restaurant, which opened a few months ago, are as light as miniature clouds, and are meltingly good. Antipasti selections include a spinach souffle in a tomato garlic sauce; swordfish carpaccio with a rucola sauce; and mussels terrine in a lemon sauce. Pasta dishes include the spinach gnocchi in a butter and sage sauce; rigatoni with sausage, rucola and balsamic vinegar; and pappardelle with tomato sauce and fresh thyme. Chilean sea bass in a black olive crust; calamari stew with tomato, spinach, garlic and red pepper; steamed salmon with fennel and beans; and chicken sauteed with pears and pecorino cheese in a red wine sauce are options for the main course. ($25 and Under: 10/27/99)

(212) 528-0400; 165 Duane Street, at Hudson Street; $$$$; smoking at the bar; all major credit cards.

This restaurant has a lot of old-fashioned grace. The dining room, with its well-spaced tables and conservative country-Italian decor, is as soothing as a massage. Current starters include a pepper-crusted tuna over a fennel and tomato salad with black olive vinaigrette; pumpkin risotto with sage, pancetta, toasted pumpkin seeds and crispy shallots; and cannellini bean soup with pecorino ravioli. Main dishes include Maine lobster over potato puree in a Barolo wine sauce; sauteed skate with fennel, diced apple and capers topped with a cherry tomato salad; thinly sliced breast of Muscovy duck topped with seared foie gras served with a calvados; and roasted rack of lamb surrounded by a caramelized onion and truffle jus. (Article: 10/13/ 99)

(212) 791-3510; 18 Murray Street, between Church Street and Broadway; $$; no smoking; all major credit cards.

This Indian restaurant, named for the vegetarian snacks of South India, opened early this year and is a must-try for anyone interested in the range and breadth of Indian flavors. The $20 prix fixe menu offer more than a dozen appetizers and main courses. Appetizers include samosa, golden fried pastry filled with potato, feta cheese and pomegranate seeds; tomato rasam, a light broth with tamarind and roasted spices; and dosas, chickpea and corn crepes served with cucumber sauce. Main courses include undhiya, a seasoned melange of vegetables, adzuki beans and plantains; nilgiri korma, assorted vegetables in a curry of coconut, coriander and mint; and asamese kachumber salad, roasted vegetables served over wheat noodles in three-seed tomato sauce. ($25 and Under: 6/9/99)

Summaries taken from reviews use the star ratings. Others are taken from the $25 and Under column (+) and articles (++), and capsule revies from New York Today: www.nytoday.com (+++).

What the Stars Mean

**** -- Extraordinary

*** -- Excellent

** -- Very Good

* -- Good

None Poor to Satisfactory

Price Range

Based on the cost of a three-course dinner, per person, tax, tip and drinks not included.

$ -- $25 and under

$$ -- $25 to $40

$$$ -- $40 to $55

$$$$ -- $55 and over

Past Reviews -- Good Eating columns back to June 1998, along with reviews from The Times and capsule reviews by Times critics of additional restaurants not reviewed in the newspaper, are available on New York Today.


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A Bill for Doctors, and Patients

Published: April 11, 2000

To the Editor:

Your April 8 editorial ''A Cartel for Doctors,'' referring to the bill proposed by Representative Tom Campbell that would permit doctors to negotiate collectively with health plans as a ''cartel for doctors,'' misses the point. We can no longer be considered independent when all conditions are dictated by health plans. Yes, there is a cartel, but it is the health plans. The bill tries to level the playing field.

Would you like to be a patient when all conditions of your care are dictated by a health plan and your doctor has little or no say?

Red Bank, N.J., April 9, 2000

The writer is president-elect of the Medical Society of New Jersey.


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Cell Tower Plans Stir Neighbors

Published: July 23, 2000

BETSY BACH couldn't believe the chutzpah of it.

When Bell Atlantic originally approached her synagogue, Congregation Kol Ami, in the fall of 1998 about the possibility of building a 100-foot cellular tower on the property here, board members and members of the congregation spent nearly a year debating the proposal before rejecting it.

''Our board decided that it wasn't a good use of our property,'' said Ken Simon, current president of the congregation and its treasurer when the issue was first discussed. ''It's not in keeping with our spiritual and community mission.''

So imagine Mrs. Bach's chagrin to find that Omnipoint Communications had entered into a contract with Kol Ami's neighbor, the Fenway Golf Club, and was seeking White Plains approval to install a 150-foot cellular tower on a corner of the property that abuts not only estate homes on Soundview Avenue but also a playground on Kol Ami's property.

''It's pretty rude to go to our neighbors and put up essentially the same thing that we turned down,'' said Mrs. Bach, who is a fourth-generation member at Kol Ami. Although the company has said that the top one-third of the structure would be designed to resemble a tree, she said, ''It's still hiding an evil underneath.''

Disputes about where to put cellular phone towers have added another wrinkle to the not-in-my-backyard skirmishes in suburban communities across the country; the added element of a border war only sharpens this debate.

The residents that would be directly affected by the 150-foot tower live in White Plains, although some Scarsdale residents who are the golf club's neighbors may also be affected. Most of the land of the Fenway Golf Club is in Scarsdale, but the part where the tower would go up falls under White Plains' jurisdiction.

''It's tower dumping,'' said Michael Moss, whose house is next to both Kol Ami and the Fenway Golf Club and who admits that concerns about property values as well as aesthetics have prompted his opposition. ''Scarsdale has a coverage gap in cellular phones, but Scarsdale also has zoning regulations on the books that are very restrictive.''

Kim Thompson, corporate communications manager for Voice Stream, corporate parent for Omnipoint, said: ''This was the location that was offered by the golf club. The main reason we've chosen to locate there is to obtain coverage we need to have in that area.''

In February 1998, the village of Scarsdale enacted legislation that specified the distance that cell towers could be placed, relative to homes, schools and houses of worship. In a residential neighborhood, the distance is 350 feet, while for the village's municipal properties and commercially zoned areas and golf clubs, it's 125 feet.

Mayor Joseph M. Delfino of White Plains said he had asked the corporation counsel to look into legislation controlling cellular towers.

He added: ''My objective is to not affect the quality of life for the residents. No member of the golf club would want this near their home.''

Jeffrey Citron, president of the Fenway Golf Club, said: ''We have an agreement with Omnipoint. Obviously, we will do anything within reason to assist Omnipoint and the neighbors to finalize this project. The issue is between Omnipoint and the neighbors. We believe that ultimately the cell tower will benefit everyone.'' He added that the golf club's contract with Omnipoint is contingent on the city's approval.

Christopher Kaye, a planner for White Plains, which held a public hearing on the proposed tower earlier this week, said: ''The Planning Board felt that all possible scenarios had not been presented. Instead of a single 150-foot tower, there were other methods to consider. At the meeting, we heard the application, listened to the neighbors and developed questions that would allow all alternatives to be explored.'' Omnipoint's application is on the agenda for the Aug. 8 meeting.

The Fenway Golf Club, which has about 340 members, would receive annual revenues of about $70,000 from Omnipoint and its four other wireless partners on the tower, which would translate into a savings of $205 on annual fees of $11,000, according to some club members.

''This has been put through without membership approval,'' said Robert Moss, a member of the Fenway Golf Club for 50 years and Michael Moss's father.

Saying that the tower would be visible from 50 percent of the course, he added: ''I'm upset aesthetically, and it's not a classy thing to do. It makes Fenway look bad.''

Photo: The Mosses of White Plains, from left: Daryl, holding Robyn, Haley, Benjamin and Michael with Jenny. Proposed tower would go behind trees. (Chris Maynard for The New York Times)


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Behind the Scenes... and Above

Published: November 17, 2000

TIME seems to stand still on a Friday afternoon in October at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, where, in just about two weeks, the new musical ''Jane Eyre'' is supposed to start previews. This should be a typical technical rehearsal in which stagehands run through the show's scenery and lighting cues. Instead, pieces of the set are still piled high on seats in the orchestra section. On the bare stage, people with headsets stand around looking up helplessly into the flies.

And John Napier, the dynamic, wry, headstrong British scenic designer responsible for the helicopter in ''Miss Saigon,'' the barricade in ''Les Miserables'' and the outsize junkyard in ''Cats,'' indulges a foul mood, nursing a nasty cold and wishing he were back home in England, attending to the renovation of his artist's studio, rather than slogging through the installation of a Broadway set.

''It's a very, very, very long way we have to go,'' he says despondently, sitting in the back of the darkened theater. ''Nothing seems to be working. I want to be home building a house.''

When ''Jane Eyre,'' a musical based on the Charlotte Bronte novel and directed by John Caird and Scott Schwartz, opens on Dec. 3, the audience will probably note little about the scenery except perhaps its pleasing soft-focus projections of windows and trees; its elegant 19th-century drawing rooms; the fact that couches and chairs come in and go out. But the gestation of such a Broadway set includes the coordination of artistry and carpentry, complicated by setbacks, personality clashes and perfectionism. And because Mr. Napier says he always likes to defy convention, the hurdles with ''Jane Eyre'' have been perhaps a little bit higher than usual.

Mr. Napier, 56, an imposing yet impish father of four with a shock of silver hair and thick features, has been designing shows since art school and has won five Tony Awards. In conceiving the set for ''Jane Eyre,'' which has music and lyrics by Paul Gordon and was produced in Wichita, Kan.; Toronto; and La Jolla, Calif., before moving to Broadway, Mr. Napier said that he wanted to achieve an atmosphere of fluidity: impressionistic, cinematic, elegant. ''I had a vision of objects floating through space and arriving in a scene from the most unexpected positions,'' he said. ''You see a window come in; then the window would start to travel with light still streaming through it. Furniture elements drift in separately, like a Chagall painting. Elements hover in space. That's what first excited me about developing this machine.''

''This machine'' is a 53,000-pound carousel suspended above the stage from which scrims and set pieces like paintings and windows drop, traverse and revolve. Also suspended from the carousel are state-of-the-art lights, which themselves move around and through which the show's more than 40 scenic slides are projected onto the scrims. The effect, when finally achieved, will be deceptively simple. But the technology behind it is a significant advancement in scenic design.

While Broadway stages have been revolving for years, with ''Jane Eyre,'' scenery and lights for the first time also revolve above the actors. And whereas scenery typically arrives on stage vertically or horizontally, the carousel allows for many more unorthodox angles. In the scene in which Jane Eyre's school friend dies, for example, the bed revolves on the stage, and a window descends from the carousel and rotates with light from the carousel already shining through it -- all at the same time rather than in sequence.

Although the set was used in the California production, it had to be almost entirely rebuilt for Broadway because the Brooks Atkinson is decidedly smaller than the La Jolla playhouse. Constructing it was the job of Showmotion, a 45,000-square-foot scene shop in Norwalk, Conn., where about 60 people worked on building ''Jane Eyre.'' By late September, about 75 percent of the set had been transported to New York on flatbed trucks and installed in the theater. What remained was the steel monster that is the carousel, 30 feet in diameter, which holds the 47 sequenced motors it takes to move the scenery.

An orange ring inside the carousel acts like the third rail in a subway system, carrying electronic data to the computers. Showmotion, which also constructs theme parks and stadiums and built ''Starlight Express'' for Mr. Napier on Broadway, had to create a whole new software system to run the ''Jane Eyre'' cues.

''It's a big mechanical challenge for us,'' said William M. Mensching, the president of Showmotion. ''Who knows? It might set a new way to do things on Broadway or anywhere else.''

But the audience won't see any of the carousel's magic, Mr. Mensching added; it is largely hidden above the stage. ''People can only wonder how it's happening,'' he said.

The Magic of the Scrims

As the set was making its way to New York, Mr. Napier and the lighting designers met to coordinate their plans. At a conference table in the offices of Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, the show's lighting designers, Mr. Napier; Keith Gonzales, the associate scenic designer; and Lisa Podgur Cuscuna, who worked on projections, pored over a 60-page notebook that delineated each scene in the show.


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National News Briefs; New Findings on Salt

Published: January 4, 2001

Lowering salt intake appears to reduce high blood pressure significantly whether or not a person already eats a healthy diet, researchers have found.

The finding, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine this week, suggests that even those without high blood pressure can benefit from a low-salt diet, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said.

The results were based on a comprehensive evaluation of 412 volunteers, half of whom ate a typical diet and half who consumed mostly fruits, vegetables and low-fat products, a diet already found to lower blood pressure.


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'Niagara Falls All Over Again'

Published: August 12, 2001
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It’s not something that people understand so much these days, how a comedian needs a straight man. They see one funny guy, and then another guy who isn’t so funny. They don’t realize that the comic (Rock, for instance, his pants so baggy they drape like an opera gown) needs a straight man (me, for instance, in my tweeds and mortarboard) standing still, telling him to act right. Getting him into the right kind of trouble. Making him look so dopey he’s adorable. Most people in this world want to be the comic, and why not? You get laughs and love and attention. You get all the best catchphrases. Used to be that a good straight man could get the lion’s share of the salary, sixty-forty, a little money to salve his ego and keep him in the act. I was nobody when I joined up with Rock, so with us it was the other way around. Not that I was thinking of money that first night in Minneapolis. I just followed the guy out onto the dark stage, rubbing my painted freckles off with my thumb, happy I had somewhere to go. The light hit us like a bucket of water, and I said my first line — “Here’s what you do” — and we were off.

It’s like this: Rocky has just been hired at a cheese factory. He’s in charge of making the holes in the Swiss, but he doesn’t know how. I’m the foreman, I say, A hole is nothing! You’re bothering me now about nothing? (Maybe it doesn’t sound funny on the page, but Beethoven on the page is just black dots.) Rocky gets nervous, and more nervous, and downright panicked about the holes, the nothing.

Onstage with Rocky, I was handsomer, funnier. If anyone in the audience recognized the Dutch comic made over into the fierce foreman, they forgave me. The crowd was no longer a squawk box worked by a crank — turn that crank harder! — but what they were: a bunch of gorgeous people who happened to find us very, very funny. Then suddenly Rocky ad-libbed in a big way: he jumped into my arms, all the way off the floor, so I was cradling him. Oof. Like a lady scared of a mouse, and so I said, “What are you, a man or a mouse?”

“Mouse,” he said in his squeakiest voice.

“You’re a mouse in a cheese factory,” I told him. “You’re living the life of Reilly.” I didn’t put him down. I was twenty years old, I could lift anything if an audience was involved.

“I’m scared,” he said.

“Oh, Rocky,” I said dotingly. “Poor Rocky. Shall I sing you a song?”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

So I started Brahms’s lullaby.

“Not that one,” he said.

“Okay.” I tried Rockabye Baby.

“No!” He thumped me on the chest.

Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody? No. Beautiful Dreamer? Worse. You Made Me Love You? Out of the question. Abba-Dabba Honeymoon?

A sly nod, a settling in.

It’s almost impossible to hold on to 180 pounds of snuggling comic, but I managed. “You better sing with me, folks,” I told the audience, “or we’ll be here all night.” So they joined in, and that night five hundred people sang Rocky Carter to sleep for the first time. That’s the bit we became famous for: Why Don’t You Sleep? We did it a million times, in the movies, on radio, on TV. Veronica Lake sang Rocky to sleep, and Dan Dailey, and Bing Crosby. Always a different ridiculous song. Rocky said it was our funniest bit. Rock was educated — Harvard, he said sometimes, Princeton others, School of the Street, he told reporters. Anyhow, he studied things. What made Chaplin great? Keaton? A kind of tenderness and need, he said, not like these jokers everywhere. Why Don’t You Sleep would be how people remembered us, he said. It would be our signature.

Excerpted from Niagara Falls All Over Again by Elizabeth McCracken. Copyright © 2001 by Elizabeth McCracken. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.


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Public schools throughout New York City reported unusually high absentee rates yesterday, with only 62 percent of the city's 1.1 million students showing up for class.

Attendance typically drops on Halloween, but the problem is usually limited to high schools and is not so severe. This year's absentee rate was far worse at every grade level than in 2000, when 78.6 percent of students went to school on Oct. 31. At city high schools, only 43 percent of students reported to class yesterday, compared with 63.1 percent last year.

Middle school attendance was not much better, 58 percent, compared with 76.4 percent last Halloween. Elementary schools had the best attendance yesterday, 73.6 percent. Last year, the rate was 87.8 percent.

Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy, attributed the poor attendance to the warnings from Washington of possible imminent terrorist attacks and increasing fear about biological attacks after the city's first case of inhalation anthrax was discovered this week. She said that the city's attendance rate had been ''inching up'' since Sept. 11, and that every community school district had an attendance rate of at least 90 percent on Monday.


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Edition: U.S. / Global

ART IN REVIEW; Albert Oehlen -- 'Self-Portraits'

Published: January 25, 2002

Skarstedt Fine Art

1018 Madison Avenue, near 78th Street

Through Thursday

In this show, the German painter Albert Oehlen makes spirited sport of old masterdom and art tradition. Eight self-portraits, ranging in date back to 1983, meld figuration with abstraction while referring to the work of past masters, among them Picasso, Velázquez and de Chirico.

The show begins with a rather conventional ''Self-Portrait With Open Mouth'' (2001), a big, beautifully rendered likeness whose vacant stare seems occasioned by a profound immersion in the world's weltschmerz.

Counteracting that is a wildly slapstick portrait with one eye and another with three (along with two noses and a double mouth), both from 1983, evoking Picasso. From 1984 there is ''Frühstück Now (Self-Portrait),'' a de Chiricoid rendering of himself as a gray portrait bust on a brown table, adorned with three old-masterish onions. He looks remarkably like a lugubrious Hitler, with a touch of mustache and hair falling over one eye, while in the background hovers the eagle symbol of the Third Reich.

Another likeness from 1984 presents the artist in armor holding a palette, his head on upside down but hair right side up, à la Georg Baselitz. In ''Self-Portrait as a Dutch Woman'' (1983), he is a bare torso wearing the white, winged Dutch cap of Holland's Golden Age. But the usual short mustache occupies his face and round sprocket wheels adorn his body and the background.

These sardonic self-projections are a stretch from the recent Oehlen show of Expressionistically abstract canvases with found photos and computer-generated images, which ended two weeks ago at Luhring Augustine in SoHo. What the difference proves is the versatility of this restless painter, who said in an interview not long ago, ''The artist's 'freedom' is the duty not to be boring.'' In these two shows he abides by his observation.


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China's Party Bosses Thwart Local Leaders

Published: April 25, 2002

A confrontation between dozens of elected village leaders and long-entrenched Communist Party bosses, many of them accused of brazen corruption and nepotism, has stewed for three years now in the apple-blossom hills of eastern China.

So far, the party bosses have kept control, sometimes through brute force, preventing elected leaders from doing their jobs and thwarting the scrutiny of village accounts.

''We've been treated like livestock, like oxen being led by the nose,'' said Yu Maitong, 78, who joined the Communist Party in 1946 and had served in local party posts long before his election as village director three years ago.

Mr. Yu said he felt compelled to come out of retirement and run for office after watching village funds disappear, under a man who had reigned as party secretary for more than two decades. But since his election, Mr. Yu said, he has not even been able to stop payment of lavish expenses by other village officials allied with party bosses.

This peninsula of Shandong Province provides an extreme example of a problem that is emerging around the country. Village elections, with their oratory of popular control, are colliding with the interests of township and village party leaders.

Last year, in a bold act of collective protest, 57 village directors around Qixia resigned en masse. Their complaints gained fleeting attention in some national newspapers, including The People's Daily, the flagship of the Communist Party, but no breakthroughs, with senior leaders apparently preferring to look the other way out of concern for political stability in the countryside.

''I feel heavy-hearted,'' said Mr. Yu, who still wears a blue worker's cap and a frayed Mao suit and often dons his old Mao button as a reproach to lax officials.

''After these last three years of fighting corruption, I've seen that the local party officials aren't working for the people,'' he said. ''They're just working for themselves.''

The villages around Qixia have benefited from their proximity to Shandong Province's booming coastal cities, bringing higher incomes but also, perhaps, creating greater opportunities for graft. In 1999, later than much of the country, this region held its first village elections as part of Beijing's widely praised effort to foster ''grass roots democracy.''

But the experience of numerous communities here illustrates the gap that often exists between pronouncements in Beijing and events in the hinterlands. Elections were held, but party officials often negated the results by refusing to give the new directors access to bank accounts, financial records or the official seals necessary for signing contracts.

Several elected leaders who complained too loudly were beaten or had property destroyed, and one man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for ''assembling a crowd to disturb public order.''

''Under the law, villages are supposed to be moving toward democracy, and we took up these complaints about corruption because that's what we were elected to do,'' said Liang Yumin, 53, an apple grower and an elected leader who has spent three years fighting for access to village books and seals. ''Instead, we've all suffered terribly.''

This spring, new elections in the Qixia region are required by law, but in several cases, party officials are trying to prevent anyone involved in protests or petitions from running.

After Yu Baozhong -- no relation to Yu Maitong -- was elected director of his village on a platform of financial cleanup, local party officials tried to stop him from taking office, he said. Last year a party leader beat him, injuring his arm so badly that he cannot tend his orchards, said Mr. Yu, who appears to have aged well beyond his 36 years.

Now Mr. Yu wants to run again, but officials keep postponing elections in his village, he said.

The elected leaders have repeatedly petitioned on high for help, going to the provincial capital and to Beijing, but they say they have repeatedly been told just to go home and wait.

An official of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Beijing, which oversees village elections, said privately that the ministry was concerned by reports from Qixia but lacked the power to override the provincial and local party branches.

An official of the Shandong Province Civil Affairs Bureau, who would only be identified by his surname, Wang, challenged the accounts given by village directors. In a telephone interview he insisted that ''the conflicts in Qixia have been smoothed over, and the complaints of the villagers have basically been solved.''

Probably no one has suffered more in the tug of war between elected and party officials than Sun Xuede, 40, a truck driver who was elected village director and is now serving an eight-year prison sentence. His village was swallowed by the sprawl of Qixia, with most land rights sold to developers and many village industries ''privatized'' in what residents charge were sweetheart deals.

After Mr. Sun was elected in 1999, with 85 percent of the votes, he found evidence that the retiring party secretary had embezzled public funds. He confronted the new leader, an ally of the retiring man, who refused to hand over the records.

In March 2000, some of Mr. Sun's supporters held a demonstration at the township party headquarters, at one point blocking traffic. More than a year later, after continued disputes, Mr. Sun was charged and sentenced for inciting that protest.

His wife, Zhang Yuhui, says she visits him once a month. ''When I last saw him, he said that he really regrets having been elected village director,'' she said. She quoted him as saying, ''It didn't solve any problems, and I ended up in prison.''

Photos: Yu Maitong, left, an elected village official, has been unable to stop the lavish spending of other officials allied with Communist Party leaders. Yu Baozhong, right, another elected official, was beaten by a party leader. (Photographs by The New York Times) Map of China highlighting Qixia: Elected officials around Qixia say local control is being undermined.


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'A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla'

Published: July 28, 2002
(Page 2 of 3)

She shifted what slender weight she had from her left to right leg. Those emerald eyes were really sparkling at me. I sensed I wasn't going to get off so easy, what with having told her how unoffended I tended to get.

"Rather," I said, with a smile that felt more qualified than I'd wanted. "So, do you need help with those boxes?"

"Yes, actually. Thank you for offering." Reminded back to her task, my friend blew at her bangs. "And you should probably close your door," she suggested, tossing the bangs at it.

"Thanks," I said, closing it.

She swiped the glow from her brow with the back of an exquisite wrist, then hefted a box that dwarfed her, leaning back as she levered it into her empty apartment.

"Wow, you're really strong," I remarked, watching her waddle.

"I know," she sighed, dropping her box in the foyer before walking back to me. "Che Guevara Horowitz cried when I punched his arm in art. But he still wants to marry me."

"Who could blame him?"

Judging from her yuck mouth and trademark eye roll, Little Green could.

I slid my fingers under the bottom of a box—the largest—but stayed in my squat.

"And Che Guev always tries to kiss me," she continued, watching me.

"Who wouldn't?" I quickly wrinkled my brows into what I hoped was my most un-child-molesterish expression.

"Sammy Manna Sonnenberg. That's who. He's the only really sensible boy in my class. He's very much my type. But I explained to him that he'll just have to wait until I'm a bit more mature. Both physically and emotionally."

I told her that as far as things in this world being worth the wait went, I thought the above was probably right up there at the top of the list. Then I, an assiduous procrastinator, at last lifted my box with an affected grunt I'd sometimes heard my father make . . .

. . . and followed my companion inside.

"Anywhere is fine," she said, leading me into the living room. She flicked a pointer finger at nothing in particular. I dropped the box at my feet, where there was a dim, sound-effecty crunch of glass.

"Don't worry," she said, sounding more unconcerned than I suspected she was. "It was probably already broken."

"Will you let me know and I'll pay for it?"

"Okay," she lied.

I nodded and glanced around. The apartment had that demon sense of people fleeing old lives; a hopeful vacuum. There would be secrets discovered here, I thought. Sins dismissed.

"My mom told me not to let anyone but the super in here, but you don't look mean." She looked at me as though she needed my suit size. "You're like a big kid, Curtis."

I smiled, feeling my cheeks stretch back in a way that they hadn't in weeks. It was as unqualified as they come.

"Where are your parents?" I asked her.

Little Green twisted her neck, which audibly popped. "My mom's with the movers. And my dad just bought this phat loft on Crosby. That's why we had to move. They're having a trial separation. It's just temporary." As she studied my face, her tongue darted once quick in and out of her mouth. She seemed to be auditioning something inside her. "Guess who lives in my father's new building, Curtis?"

I couldn't.

"Come on . Just one guess."

"David Hasselhoff."

"Wrong. Rupert Everett."

Fearing I'd now be thought irrevocably unhip, I admitted that I didn't have the foggiest.

"He's friends with Madonna."

"Oh," I said, shrewdly. "Oh. Okay." (Whatever that meant.)

"He just came out."

"Of what?"

"You know, out. " Two annoyed blinks.

I gaped.

"Of the closet ," she rolled the famous eyes again.

"And it was about time," I conceded, not exactly sure of the tone I was supposed to be taking in these graceless days. But from the unfinished look Little Green gave me, I took it that I hadn't offered quite the desired response. "That's too bad," I opted.

"No, no. It's really cool. He moved in with his boyfriend, Rialto. That's my friend Keanu's dad. Keanu's nice but a dork sometimes. He doesn't even know his times tables yet."

"Jesus," I scoffed, and "what about long division?"

"We're doing that next semester. But Harmony Downy's dad already taught her how," she grumbled. "Come on." She jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen, then led me there in a hopscotch formation that I suddenly remembered doing in another lifetime.

Little Green removed a takeout tin of hummus and pita from her otherwise empty fridge. She took what seemed to me an enormous bite for such a tiny mouth, then held the plate out to me, chewing, raising her eyebrows.


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Alcoa's 3rd-Quarter Profit Down 43%

Published: October 5, 2002

Alcoa Inc. said third-quarter profit declined 43 percent because of low aluminum prices and falling sales to aerospace, energy and telecommunications customers.

Net income fell for a sixth straight quarter, to $193 million, or 23 cents a share, from $339 million, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 5.2 percent, to $5.22 billion from $5.51 billion, Alcoa said.

While shipments rose 9 percent, the average price Alcoa got for its aluminum, fell 7 percent. Alcoa said it had fewer orders for parts for airplanes, power plant turbines and fiber optic cables.

''It's going to take a lot of beer cans to replace an aerospace order,'' said Joe Mareci, an analyst at Walnut Asset Management.

Alcoa, which is based in Pittsburgh, was the first stock in the Dow Jones industrial average to report third-quarter results. Its shares fell 99 cents, to $19.11 a share.

Aerospace customers that buy Alcoa's fasteners are slowing production as airlines cancel and delay plane orders.

Alcoa also sells turbine parts to energy companies, many of whom have delayed or canceled construction of new plants because of falling electricity demand and trading.

Sales of engineered products, Alcoa's biggest business and the one that serves the aerospace and energy markets, fell 13 percent, to $1.31 billion in the quarter.

Alcoa's sales from packaging rose 13 percent, to $757 million.


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What Will Become of Africa's AIDS Orphans?

Published: December 22, 2002
(Page 3 of 7)

So the Enat children are not in line for adoption; nor are they receiving medical treatment. ''Medication to fight AIDS is not available,'' says Atsede's husband, Gezahegn, who has the dark, rumpled, bloodshot look of a man who has been up all night; he has wrestled AIDS for a dozen of these small lives already and has had every one of them pulled from his arms.

In America last year, thanks to vigorous treatment of infected pregnant women, only 200 H.I.V./AIDS-infected children were born, down from 2,000 in 1994. Most of those babies will live fairly normal lives and survive to adulthood. In Africa, without medications to treat complicating infections, 75 percent of H.I.V.-positive babies will be dead by the age of 2, says Dr. Mark Kline, director of the International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Of the remaining 25 percent, he says, very few will reach age 11.

Until recently, Enat served as a holding center for children prior to testing. It was not always clear at first whether the children were infected or not. ''We see nice kids, bright futures, then we must test them,'' Atsede says. ''Some get the news that they are negative; then we can refer them to the Children's Commission for assignment to a foreign adoption program. Some will be adopted to America; others, to different countries. But other children test positive. When they first come, we often cannot guess. You'd think it would be the baby of a sibling group who will test positive, but then the results come back and sometimes it is the middle child, so the older child and the baby are transferred out.''

Gezahegn's background was in business and government administration, not medicine; he was reluctant to enter this field. Now he finds it has swallowed his life. Nothing compares in importance with trying to sustain the lives of the ill children in his care. ''We can fight pneumonia and small infections in the children, but that is all,'' he says. ''We are running a hospice program. It is rather hard to see the children dying.''

Still, these stricken children must be counted among the relatively blessed of their generation; the care they receive is the best available. ''The children are happy here,'' Atsede says. ''We celebrate holidays; we give them birthdays; we invite their living relatives to visit them. They know that the children at orphanages with adoption programs are learning English and other languages, so we teach them English here, too, so they don't feel left out. The hotels invite them to swing and climb on their playgrounds. We want them to enjoy life. We want them to see something of life.''

Time for that is often short. ''A child begins by losing weight,'' Gezahegn says. ''Then she develops infections, stops eating, has diarrhea, pain in joints, pain in ears. It can take five months, three months, two months. A child does not talk about it, but she's kind of depressed. One day she is not playing on the playground; she just wants to sit and to be held.''

It has become the life mission of this couple to do more than sit by the deathbeds of small children in pain. They are not participants in the debate among health-care professionals over whether treatment or prevention ought to be the public health priority in Africa, Asia and South America. Their question is simpler: how can they get hold of the triple cocktails that in America now have reduced deaths by AIDS by 76 percent since 1996?

By American standards, the cost doesn't sound extravagant. An average figure for pediatric triple-drug therapy in Africa is now $60 to $80 per child per month, and the price is dropping. But without serious commitment of financing from the industrialized world, even these modest costs are unreachable.

When Atsede sits down on a chair in the dirt yard under a shade tree for a rare break, the children skitter over to her and lay their heads upon her long cotton skirts or climb up into her arms and nuzzle their faces into her neck. She laughs as her face is dotted with kisses. ''The children call me Abaye, Daddy, and her Emaye, Mommy,'' Gezahegn says. A little girl waits for him, eager to demonstrate for him a trick she has mastered at jump-rope. The music class waits for his attention to show that they have learned a song with synchronized dance steps. Children raise their hands and hop up and down to be chosen by Gezahegn to accompany him in the backfiring van on an errand to town. Until sickness comes, the faces under the bouncing braids of the little girls and the brimmed caps of the boys are round, happy and hopeful.

''Without therapy,'' Kline says, ''as far as we know, all of the children will die.''

ayla House, a shady compound with a paved common area, a baby house, dormitories for boys and for girls, a schoolroom and a kitchen and dining hall, is run by Adoption Advocates International, based in Port Angeles, Wash. A.F.A.A. House, on the outskirts of town, almost buried in flower gardens, is run by Americans for African Adoptions, based in Indianapolis and directed by Cheryl Carter-Shotts. These two are the only American agencies permitted by the Ethiopian government to arrange for adoption of healthy Ethiopian orphans to America. More than 100 children joined new families in the U.S. in 2001. At least a dozen other adoption agencies based in Addis Ababa represent Australia, Canada and seven nations of Western Europe and Scandinavia.


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Metro Briefing | New Jersey: Camden: State Takeover Upheld

By Laura Mansnerus (NYT) (Compiled by Anthony Ramirez)
Published: March 19, 2003

The state's takeover of Camden's city government and schools has withstood legal challenge, for now. A Superior Court judge yesterday dismissed arguments by the Camden Board of Education and a City Council member that the takeover violated the State Constitution. They plan to appeal. Under the ruling, Judge Andrew J. Smithson permitted the takeover and economic recovery plan to continue. The state will provide $175 million to Camden, the state's poorest city, but has not yet sold the bonds for the plan. The Camden plaintiffs had argued that state appointment of local school board members abridged the right to self-government. Laura Mansnerus (NYT)


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MUSIC REVIEW; Abuzz Over Carnegie, Philharmonic Shines

Published: June 7, 2003

Before Thursday night's concert by the New York Philharmonic, the first new program offered since the stunning announcement this week that the orchestra will be moving to Carnegie Hall, you could see people huddled together talking about the news and its implications. Some even seemed to be glancing wistfully around Avery Fisher Hall.

For the occasion Lorin Maazel turned in the most impressive work I have heard from him this season, although the program was different from what had long been announced. It was supposed to have begun with the premiere of a symphony by the inventive British composer Oliver Knussen. But it was no surprise when Mr. Knussen told the Philharmonic two months ago that he would not have the work, promised for several years, completed on time.

Mr. Knussen has had a notably poor record of meeting commission deadlines, in part because of his increasing activities as a valued conductor of contemporary music. Sadly, his work in recent months has been profoundly affected by the death of his wife in March. The Philharmonic's directors are sticking by the commission. But they will not schedule the work for performance until they have the score in hand.

Mr. Maazel's program included 20th-century works by Gerswhin, Debussy and Varèse that, he thought, would intriguingly complement the new Knussen symphony. In its place he performed, of all things, the third symphony of America's most homespun symphonist, Roy Harris. This work, composed in 1938-39, proved a surprisingly apt substitution, especially in Mr. Maazel's gripping performance.

In the standard repertory Mr. Maazel can be a distressingly willful interpreter. But his rigorous approach to the Harris symphony, a compact 16-minute work in a sectional but continuous movement, was a revelation. In much of his music Harris plumbed American folk tunes and indulged in unabashed expressions of patriotic piety. But in this symphony you sense Harris's ''unquenchable passion to know and to use all the procedures of musical composition,'' as Virgil Thomson once put it.

In the first section the low strings restlessly evolve in long stretches of continuous melodic writing, until the winds and horns enter, first bringing some welcome calm, but soon getting riled up and provoking the violins to fortissimo yelps. A pastoral episode with shimmering polytonal harmonies leads to a thick, somber and bruising fugue.

Mr. Maazel treated the symphony with utter respect, bringing articulate execution and structural clarity to his performance and eliciting burnished playing from the orchestra. He also took seriously the Gershwin Piano Concerto in F. It was a dynamic performance, with the Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder as soloist, that tried to reclaim the concerto as a brashly contemporary score. There was nothing coy about the bluesy slow movement, and the driving rhythmic patterns of the finale, both in the orchestra and in Mr. Buchbinder's arm-blurring playing, had a pummeling intensity that recalled Bartok. For me, finally, the performance sounded a little exaggerated and blaring but it was certainly fascinating.

After the intermission Mr. Maazel gave a bracingly cool and structurally clear account of Debussy's ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,'' a work too often drenched in soggy sensuality. Performed this way, it was just the thing to precede Varèse's tumultuous ''Amériques,'' written and extensively revised during the 1920's. The work (in this version) is scored for 125 players including 12 in a percussion section that includes rattles, whips and a siren. And in Mr. Maazel's performance ''Amériques'' sounded more radical than ever.

After the fidgety opening, a ruminative solo flute emerges (reminiscent of the Debussy) that seems a stand-in for the listener: a pensive sidewalk wanderer amid clangorous urban disorder. The piece crested again and again to frantic, hammering climaxes and ended in a screeching din. No problem with Avery Fisher Hall acoustics on this night.

Afterward, half the audience, looking beaten down, dashed for the exits, while most others, awe-struck and excited, stood and cheered. ''Ah,'' you could imagine Varèse saying, ''just what I wanted.''

The concert repeats tonight.