April 5, 1985

Princeton University announced today that it would give 24,000 vertebrate fossils to Yale University. The gift, which includes what is considered one of the world's finest collections of fossils of early mammals, has thousands of items that document the history of mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs about 60 million years ago, according to paleontologists. Princeton's decision to give the fossils to Yale and largely abandon the field of vertebrate fossil paleontology drew immediate criticism from several paleontologists across the country. But officials of Princeton and Yale hailed the transfer of the collection as a rare example of cooperation in what is usually a highly competitive relationship.

Governor Cuomo announced plans yesterday to put a museum and memorial to Holocaust victims in a new apartment building at Battery Park City. Mr. Cuomo offered the plan as an alternative to housing the museum at the old Federal Custom House, an ornate building that many preservationists said was inappropriate. Under the Governor's proposal, the 34-story Battery Park City building - which had always been part of the planned complex - would be put up by a nonprofit corporation, and what would have been profits would be used to underwrite the museum's operating costs, according to the president of the Battery Park City Authority, Meyer S. Frucher. Spokesmen for the New York City Holocaust Commission said they were excited by Mr. Cuomo's plan and would consider it at a meeting next week. ''We're very pleased,'' said the group's co-chairman, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney.

The Steinbergs are busy cooking matzoh balls for 85 people. The Kaplans are cleaning out their kitchen cabinets and stocking them with ''kosher for Passover'' products. The Kolodneys are studying the Haggadah, the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt in ancient times. The three Teaneck families - belonging to Reform, Orthodox and Conservative congregations, respectively - are preparing for Passover, the weeklong Jewish festival of freedom that begins at sundown Friday with the holiday meal known as the seder.

One of the key suspects in the killing of a United States drug agent was captured early today by the police in Costa Rica, American and Mexican officials said. The suspect, Rafael Caro Quintero, who is believed by authorities to be one of the major figures in Mexico's cocaine and marijuana traffic, was captured in a house that authorities said he owned in San Jose, the Costa Rican capital. Reports from San Jose said he was arrested after United States officials tipped Costa Rican authorities to his presence. Mr. Caro Quintero had been sought by authorities since early February, when an agent of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was abducted on a street in Guadalajara. Mr. Camarena Salazar's beaten body, along with that of a Mexican pilot who sometimes worked with him, was found on a ranch southeast of Guadalajara on March 5.

IN the heart of New York's bustling nightlife, a mime sits perfectly still. Behind him, baby sharks swim in a tank and in front, a clown slumps in a glass display case. These are some of the latest exhibits at Area, the city's most talked-about dance club. The opening of Area more than a year ago gave birth to a new breed of dance club, where music and dance compete with architectural pizazz, where venturesome New Yorkers go almost more to see the latest in props than to listen or move. And now the style is spreading to other clubs in the city.