October 1, 1982

AMERICANS have always loved Americana but never more so than in recent years, and that is one reason why New York's Fall Antiques Show, which opened yesterday with its focus on American furniture and artifacts, has become in just four years one of the most important and popular antiques events in the United States. But popularity has its drawbacks, particularly for antiques. It can create a market that is lean on quality and long on predictability. It is a tribute, therefore, to the 90 dealers now assembled at the Passenger Terminal at Pier 88 at West 48th Street and the Hudson River that this year's show is filled with first-rate pieces in nearly every category. And it is nothing less than a triumph of showmanship that the Queen Anne highboys, Amish quilts, painted wedding chests and folk-art weathervanes look so witty and fresh even after all these seasons at center stage.

Sales of new single-family houses rose a slight 2 percent in August, continuing a seesaw performance that has left sales at almost exactly the same level as a year earlier, new Government figures indicated today. Prices continued to rise, hitting a record median of $73,200 for new houses sold during the month, up from $71,800 in July, according to the report from the Commerce Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Secretary Richard S. Schweiker of the Department of Health and Human Services told the Carey administration yesterday that he intended to approve New York's proposal for a unified system of hospital reimbursement for the state, one that would create a fund of hundreds of millions of dollars for the hospital care of the uninsured poor. However, Mr. Schweiker established a number of conditions for Federal approval that state health officials in Albany said they were not sure could be met. According to the officials, the conditions, while not onerous, removed some of the financial benefits New York wanted.

While all six defendants in the Brink's murder trial face charges of murder and robbery, the legal approaches they have taken in their cases are as dramatically different as their decorum in the courtroom. Four of them, Nathaniel Burns, Donald Weems, David J. Gilbert and Judith A. Clark, contend that the proceedings are fundamentally illegitimate and illegal - ''part of the government's armed apparatus of war to maintain power and domination,'' Miss Clark has said. After several disruptive courtroom appearances, they are now refusing to participate in the preliminary hearings, and seem likely to sit out the trial as well. To Kathy Boudin and Samuel Brown, however, the Rockland County proceedings represent their only hope of avoiding lifetimes behind bars. Quiet and intense in court, they are nonetheless contesting their cases vigorously.

The Tsoung Shing Coffee Shop - a little bit of China in the center of Queens - is a place of many beginnings. It officially opened three years ago, but its roots date back far longer - to the streets of Hong Kong and a man named Ming You, who left his home and pregnant wife to make a fortune in New York. Mr. You never did make that fortune. In fact, it took 19 years before he earned enough money to send for his wife and the daughter he had never seen. But it is that daughter, 35-year-old Tina Wong, who stands behind the counter these days at the Tsoung Shing - a combination coffee shop and Chinese restaurant where the cornflakes sit alongside the ginger hot sauce and scrambled eggs share plates with the pork fried rice. It is the kind of place that will never make a fortune for anyone, but that an entire family calls home.