August 11, 1985

A Long Island developer who converted a string of motels into resort cooperatives and condominiums has made a deal to buy the Tudor Hotel on East 42d Street in Manhattan, where he plans to sell rooms through a time-share plan. If approved by state officials, it will be the first attempt at time-sharing for a hotel here.

At the new Army chemical factory that local residents nonchalantly call ''the nerve gas plant,'' the waiting conveyor belts are wrapped in protective plastic. The kettles and scrubbers were tested in June and pronounced ready, pending only the final pull of political levers in Washington. If that comes -both supporters and opponents say they expect the House to pass the bill in a final vote in September - the Pine Bluff Arsenal and the Federal Government will be back in the chemical weapon business for the first time in 16 years. With the start of production, an incinerating plant now under construction on the other side of the thickly timbered Army reservation here is to begin destroying part of the old stockpile of chemical weapons, 721 tons of deteriorating cluster bombs and drums containing the incapacitating agent BZ. Victory for the Pentagon The move toward resumption of production of chemical weapons is the Pentagon's most impressive and unexpected political victory of the year.

In Africa, having many children has customarily been considered a gift of divine favor and having none, a great curse. Yet population experts say they believe - and governments in Africa are beginning to agree - that the continent is sagging under the weight of a population that is now estimated at 500 million and is increasing at the rate of 3 percent each year, faster than any other region in the world. The governments have begun to grapple with the problem as Pope John Paul II is insisting that Roman Catholics shun artificial methods of birth control. Highest Birth Rate in Kenya The issue places the Pope and the governments in open conflict. Vatican sources have said that opposition to artificial contraception may be one of the themes stressed by the Pope during his 12-day tour of seven African countries. They include Kenya, which has the world's highest population growth rate, at 4.1 percent, as well as Togo, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Zaire and Morocco.

To the people who grew up in the neighborhood, who saw it flourish and then nearly die, the Crotona Park Pool sometimes seems like an enormous mirage, its Caribbean-blue waters shimmering amid the empty lots and tightly packed brick apartment buildings of the South Bronx. On hot summer days like yesterday, with hundreds of children splashing in the water beneath her lifeguard's chair, 25-year-old Teresa Gonzalez remembers when she was a little girl at the pool, and how as she got older the pool that everyone knew as the biggest and grandest in all the Bronx deteriorated along with the surrounding park and streets. ''Every day my mother would say, 'Go to the pool! Go to the pool! Get out of the house!' '' said Miss Gonzalez, who recently received a degree in mechanical engineering from City College. ''But then the neighborhood went down and turned into what was known as The South Bronx,'' she said. ''All the abandoned buildings. The park was neglected. The pool got infamous. When I was a teen-ager, going to Crotona Pool was taking your chances.''

A building boom in the late 1970's and early 1980's gave Hauppauge, in western Suffolk County, some 12 million square feet of industrial space in the form of high-technology research-and-development facilities. The commercial expansion not only provided an estimated 35,000 jobs but also created a demand for housing in that part of the county.