January 24, 1986

Friday A THOUSAND MEOWS Some 46.3 million cats now live in 27.2 percent of American homes, and 75 percent of New York area pet owners keep a cat in their household. There will be 1,000 more cats in the neighborhood starting today at 2, when the second International Cat Show opens at Madison Square Garden, continuing through Sunday night. The visitors from around the world - both purebreds and household tabbies - will compete in what has been called the world's largest international feline forum. Among this year's novelties are six breeds that New Yorkers will see for the first time. The Garden Cat Club, which is producing this extravaganza, is a not-for-profit organization with the goal of promoting educated pet ownership, supporting local shelters and fostering advances in veterinary medicine. Today's events end at 9; tomorrow and Sunday's events run from 10 to 7. Tickets are $7 today, $8 tomorrow and $10 Sunday; a three-day combination ticket is available for $20, and a two-day weekend ticket is $15. Tickets for children and the elderly are $4 today and tomorrow; $5 Sunday. Information: 564-4400. No dogs allowed.

The White House today reaffirmed its support for a comprehensive immigration bill, even though President Reagan's economic advisers have warned that certain provisions in the legislation would harm the economy. However, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, a Democrat, said that the President's Council of Economic Advisers had placed a new obstacle in the legislation's path. A 'Labor Market Tax' A draft report by the council says that proposals to punish employers of illegal aliens would have adverse effects on the nation's economy, reducing output and imposing a new ''labor market tax'' on employers. The report is to be submitted to Congress in early February, but some of its conclusions were published Thursday in The New York Times.

TWO of the latest places from which to admire New York by looking down on it are Broadway hotels a few blocks apart. There's the brand new Marriott Marquis at 45th Street, with lounges and a restaurant that revolve in stately fashion - apparently the first perambulating premises in town. And there is the year-old, French-owned Novotel at 52d, whose Wine Bistro stands still. The most dramatic panoramas are from the Marriott Marquis's upper reaches: a restaurant on the 47th floor and a lounge on the 48th, soon to be joined by a lounge on the 49th, and known collectively as ''The View.''

Birds and beasts are dramatizing many of this year's displays at the Winter Antiques Show - just waiting for collectors to hunt them down. But there's lots more at this antiques extravaganza, the nation's most important bazaar for secondhand wares. The booths of the 74 participating dealers are chock-full of pedigree French and English furniture, fragile porcelain figurines, Renaissance bronzes, folk art and exquisitely crafted 19th-century toys. Spending a day at the fair this year will seem to some like a visit to the zoo. A life-sized polar bear, carved about 1920 by Alan Herschell for a traveling carousel, stands guard near a stack of quilts at America Hurrah and may be bagged for $48,000. A large Newfoundland dog - 800 pounds worth of a cast-iron garden decoration - stands at the entrance to Marguerite Riordan's booth ($25,000). On Gerald Kornblau's wall hangs a fierce bull's head, which was made to embellish a 19th-century barn door. And Stuart P. Feld expects that more than a few griffin-fanciers and Federal furniture collectors will visit his Hirschl & Adler booth when they see the pair of regal mythological creatures decorating the base of an early 19th-century New York games table ($110,000).

From within the crowd, an older white woman slowly lifted her hand, cleared her throat and rose to address a tall black man leading the discussion group. ''When I see a black person, I am uncomfortable,'' said the woman, Joan Vaniz-Smith, a resident of Darien for 25 years. ''I don't like that about myself. I want to change it.''