November 16, 1983

New Yorkers are getting their first glimpse of a future that looks more like the past - a plan for a four-block parcel that is meant to evoke Gramercy Park's intimacy and Central Park West's majesty on what is now an empty landfill. Those planning the latest addition to the slowly emerging Battery Park City gathered Monday night to recall how the master plan had evolved. Their conclusion was that the effort to summon the best lessons of history was not a bow to architectural vogue but a logical response to what might be the most pervasive architectural influence of all: the marketplace. Barry E. Light, president of the Battery Park City Authority, emphasized the importance of financing to such a project. ''We are not going to return to the celebration of the city unless we can build it,'' he said.

It is a miracle, E. B. White once remarked, that New York works. ''By rights New York should have destroyed itself years ago,'' he wrote, ''from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system.'' Last night, the fund for the City of New York celebrated the proposition that more than 200,000 municipal workers stand between the city and such chaos. At a ceremony at the Roosevelt Hotel, the fund singled out six civil servants, honoring their performance with Lucite plaques and tax-free checks for $5,000.

IN a time when American menus are more and more being homogenized by culinary hype, the planning of a Thanksgiving dinner stands out as one of the last bastions of ruggedly personal decision-making. Any one of us beyond the age of 10 is convinced that he or she alone knows precisely what the meal should include: with a dogmatism nurtured by nostalgia for Thanksgivings past, we hurl at each other our several and competing orthodoxies. One of us declares the feast will fail without oyster dressing; another must have a sausage stuffing on the side. Still another insists that red cabbage is essential, while someone else never heard of such a thing. The cranberry sauce should be Recipes are on page C8. lumpy, or it should be smooth, or it should be uncooked, or banished altogether because it fights with the wine. There is even the occasional heretic who thinks turkey a bore and chooses goose, duck or fresh ham instead.

''We hereby declare before the world and before history the establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as an independent state.

WHEN Peter Taylor was an infant, several physicians advised his parents to institutionalize the child because they predicted that Down's syndrome, a genetic disorder, would prevent him from ever doing the things that other children do. His parents disagreed. ''In spite of the obstacles, we persevered,'' said his mother, Charlotte Taylor of Princeton, N.J. ''We wanted to bring up Peter to have as normal a life as possible because we believe that he had as much right to be independent as did our four normal children.'' Mr. Taylor, now 26 years old, has fulfilled his parents' dreams. Instead of being shut away in an institution, he works as a butcher's assistant and shares an apartment with another young man. In his spare time, he plays basketball, swims and attends football games. He has many friends and has even traveled abroad.