August 24, 1984

From across the East River, Long Island City looks like the industrial center it has been for more than a century, a place where bread is baked, steel is welded and cloth is sewn. Within its borders are more than 500 factories. Train tracks and highways, carrying thousands to and from Manhattan each day, thread their way through the blackened smokestacks that rise above the Queens waterfront. Yet there is something behind and between the factories that commuters rarely see: a proud neighborhood of historic Italianate homes, fine restaurants and quiet parks. Long Island City has also recently emerged as a proving ground for young artists; there is a well-known if eclectic art gallery there. And if all goes as planned, the community will soon be an international entertainment center.

Quotation of the Day ''With our beloved nation at peace, we are in the midst of a springtime of hope for America.

For over a week, the financial affairs of Geraldine A. Ferraro, the Democratic candidate for Vice President, and John A. Zaccaro, her husband, have been under intense scrutiny by the nation's news media. The story has been reported with repeated front-page articles in newspapers and generous time from network television news shows. But bubbling beneath the surface of the story is a difficult question that promises to emerge as an issue of public debate and is already being discussed internally by people in the news business: Has the nation's press been fair to Representative Ferraro? Specifically, is the inquiry into the finances of the Congresswoman and her husband an important news story that has been handled properly, or has the coverage of the story, even if it is a legitimate one, been unduly aggressive and overblown? For the press, coverage of the first woman to become a major party's Vice-Presidential nominee and her husband has meant moving through uncharted waters requiring new judgment calls.

The Long Island Lighting Company said yesterday that it had struck a deal with 14 banks to get enough cash to keep out of bankruptcy through early next year, but that the deal required it to stop paying dividends on preferred stock. The banks, led by Citibank, the Chemical Bank and the Chase Manhattan Bank, will provide $150 million in new credit now and may add $50 million later, the utility said. Lilco faces a $90 million bill on Sept. 1 for repayment of bonds. Before the new loans, it had only $70 million on hand for the payment and was considering filing under the Federal bankruptcy law. Shoreham Plant Problems The company faces an additional $15 million bond repayment in December, as well as other expenses that it was afraid it could not meet without new sources of credit because of problems in opening its Shoreham nuclear power plant.

President Reagan, accepting the Republican nomination for a second term, appealed tonight for the party's help in finishing the ''unfinished agenda'' of a conservative reformation of the Government. Mr. Reagan told the delegates to the Republican National Convention that Speech transcripts, pages A12-13. the contest between himself and Walter F. Mondale, the Democratic Presidential nominee, presented the nation's voters ''with the clearest political choice of half a century.'' Historic Vote Foreseen Mr. Reagan's running mate, Vice President Bush, described the 1984 election as a historic dividing line in American politics. By winning election to a second term, the Vice President said in his acceptance speech, he and Mr. Reagan would establish the Republicans as ''the party of the future.'' Aides to Mr. Reagan say they do not see how he can lose in November, but they want to avoid the pitfalls of complacency. (News analysis, page A11.)