September 9, 1983

WALKING tours of New York have come a long way since 10 years ago, when such institutions as the Municipal Art Society, the Museum of the City of New York and the Friends of Cast Iron Architecture began to take New Yorkers on ordered routes through the city's history and architecture. Today, it is possible to spend almost any weekend scrutinizing New York from the sidewalk. There have been walks through subway tunnels and across archeological digs, and bird's-eye scannings from the tops of tall buildings. The life of such New York writers as Herman Melville may provide the tour's organizing principle - or ghosts, songs, ethnic restaurants, cemetery roll-calls or poisonous plants. Few pastimes develop such a heightened awareness of familiar surroundings. ''An old teapot, used daily, can tell me more of my past than anything I recorded of it,'' Sylvia Townsend Warner has written. ''Continuity, continuity,'' she wrote, ''it is that which we cannot write down, it is that we cannot compass, record or control.'' What survives the annihilating press of time - whether a building or a neighborhood street scene - is patient and revealing.

Alice Daniel, Governor Cuomo's counsel and the only woman among his senior advisers, resigned yesterday. Mr. Cuomo announced that he would nominate Miss Daniel to be a judge on the Court of Claims when a vacancy occurs in January. The Governor said he would appoint Gerald C. Crotty, his first assistant counsel, to replace Miss Daniel, whose resignation takes effect Oct. 15. ''I think every lawyer who has ever been a litigator wants to be a judge,'' Miss Daniel said. ''When you've been in the position of being the advocate, of urging a decision, you want to make the decisions. It's something I've always thought about.''

Relations between Washington and Moscow have grown noticeably cooler in recent days, but on Wall Street the chill has helped heat up the sluggish stocks of military contractors. The shooting down last week of a South Korean jetliner by a Soviet fighter as well as the accelerated violence in Lebanon have focused renewed attention on the military needs of the United States. Many analysts think the jetliner incident is likely to strengthen President Reagan's hand in negotiating with Congress over increased military spending for programs such as the MX missile. Others, however, are more skeptical about whether the incident will have a lasting impact on the arms industry.

Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan today criticized banks and the rest of the financial industry for the present level of interest rates. ''There doesn't seem to be a good reason - or should I say there doesn't seem to be any good excuse - for those rates to be as high as they are,'' he said in a speech here. ''Real interest rates - that is nominal rates minus inflation - remain unusually high.'' Mr. Regan, in renewing a complaint about financial institutions that he expressed earlier this year, was reflecting the Administration's concern that persistently high long-term interest rates could weaken the nation's economic recovery next year.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz held a two-hour meeting today with Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko to confront him directly with the demand that the Soviet Union accept blame for the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines plane last week. Later, Mr. Shultz said the Soviet Foreign Minister's responses to him were ''totally unacceptable.'' Mr. Shultz's voice seemed to rise in anger as he said after the meeting that Mr. Gromyko's explanations to him were ''even more unsatisfactory'' than Mr. Gromyko's public statement on Wednesday. That public statement had already drawn Mr. Shultz's ire because Mr. Gromyko had again suggested that the plane was on an American espionage mission and that the Soviet Union had the right to shoot down any intruding aircraft. NATO Aides Discuss Moves Late tonight, Mr. Shultz and the foreign ministers from the other 15 North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations met to discuss steps to voice collective indignation against the Soviet Union over the airliner incident.