LEAD: A new library in a poor area is a great thing, a place where you can shut out the noise from the street. After school lets out, the new Wyandanch Public Library fills up fast. Calvin Seabury, a fourth grader, had a report due this week on poems and at the new library he found a book - it was stuffed with poems!

Our Towns; 'A Lot of Poems': The Joy of Books In a Poor Town

LEAD: The corporate parent of the Seamen's Bank for Savings of New York announced today that it had entered into an agreement with Federal regulators that would prohibit it from paying dividends on its common stock and would severely limit its growth and investment activity.

Austerity Accord for Seamen's

WEEKENDER GUIDE

LEAD: The Communist Party said today that private farmers should be allowed to lease state land for life and to pass it on to their children, thus offering adventuresome peasants a chance at independence for the first time since the 1920's.

Soviets to Allow Private Farmers To Lease State Land for a Lifetime

LEAD: One day after he declared on a radio talk show that he was a heterosexual and vowed never to discuss the subject again, Mayor Edward I. Koch yesterday nearly kept his pledge.

On Eve of Tough Campaign, Koch Says He's Heterosexual

LEAD: The St. Patrick's Day Parade starts at 11:30 A.M. at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. It heads north on Fifth to 86th Street and then east to Third Avenue. It is expected to finish about 3:30 P.M.

Parade Today

LEAD: The nation's industrial operating rate declined last month for the first time since September, but economists and analysts said it was too soon to tell whether this signaled a sustained easing of inflationary pressures.

Industrial Operating Rate Drops

LEAD:  Votes on 2 Nominees, And More About Tower

INSIDE

LEAD: Young Irish immigrants in a steady stream climbed a flight of stairs above Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, Queens, last Tuesday to try their luck in the Federal Government's latest organized immigration gamble - a lottery that promises legal status to a happy few.

For Illegal Irish Immigrants, A Time to Test That Luck

LEAD: Evidence amassed by the Federal authorities for the canceled teamster racketeering trial in New York included an allegation that William J. McCarthy, now president of the union, sought Mafia help to get a high union job four years ago.

Top Teamster Informer Told F.B.I. That McCarthy Asked Mafia Help

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: The Transport Minister came under attack in Parliament Thursday for withholding from the public Government warnings sent to airlines and airports last November and December about terrorist bombs in radio-cassette players. Such a bomb brought down a Pan Am jumbo jet in Scotland in December.

Failure to Publicize Warning on Terror Assailed in Britain

LEAD: ''It's like the Oklahoma land rush,'' Mike Nichols, a gun collector, said as he stood in line here at Brock's Army Surplus store to buy one of the last semiautomatic assault weapons in stock. It was a Chinese-made SKS, a copy of the gun of his dreams, the AK-47 infantry rifle.

Assault Rifles Are Selling Like Blue-Chip Stocks

LEAD: In a move that further deregulates the telephone business, the Federal Communications Commission today changed its method of shaping long-distance rates, giving the American Telephone and Telegraph Company more freedom to set its own prices.

A.T.&T. IS GRANTED GREATER FREEDOM IN SETTING PRICES

LEAD: Charles L. Hardwick is a blur of political images these days as he crisscrosses the state, trying to convert his power and influence as Speaker of the General Assembly into votes for governor in the Republican primary in June.

Jersey Speaker Sprints for Governor's Job

LEAD: For the first time, Sears, Roebuck & Company has appointed a major outside marketing and merchandising organization to develop a series of women's apparel lines.

Sears Gets Outside Designer For New Women's Apparel

LEAD: Holy Week, that solemn, inevitable progression in the Passion of Christ that proceeds from this weekend's Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter Sunday, forms the culmination of the Christian year - and, by extension, the annual high point of Christian liturgical music. The sheer richness and variety of the church-music concerts and musically accompanied services to be heard in the next 10 days provides an opportunity to examine that liturgical world in the New York area, and in particular the extent and diversity of music making in

Oratorios, Hosannas and Glorias In Celebration of Easter

LEAD: Maxicare Health Plans Inc., the wounded giant of health maintenance organizations, filed yesterday for protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal bankruptcy laws.

Maxicare Health Seeks Bankruptcy Protection

LEAD: ''SOUND AND FURY,'' the French writer and director Jean-Claude Brisseau's film about aimless adolescents drifting into violence in a working-class high-rise complex outside of Paris, has little of the bonhomie and sensuousness we tend to associate with French cinema.

Angry Youth In Festival Of New Films

LEAD: In a major but unacknowledged policy shift, Mexico is expanding its cooperation with American efforts to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States, officials here and along the border say.

MEXICO ASSISTING IN U.S. PLAN TO CUT ILLEGAL MIGRATION

LEAD: Armando Parajon Juarez's last act as a free man came on July 19, 1979, when he surrendered the holdout battalion of 400 National Guardsmen under his command to Sandinista guerrillas, who were then sweeping to victory across Nicaragua.

Somoza's Soldiers Rejoining A Society Divided on Pardon

LEAD: The Government has designated 22 technologies as critical to national security and ''the long-term qualitative superiority of U.S. weapons systems.''

Crucial Technologies: 22 Make the U.S. List

LEAD: District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn will likely seek the Democratic nomination for New York City comptroller, joining an already crowded primary that will almost certainly be as contentious as the Democratic mayoral contest.

Holtzman Said to Want Goldin's Post

LEAD: Apparently seeking to dispel reports of a conflict with the Treasury, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, today endorsed the reorientation of the developing-world debt policy proposed by Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady.

Greenspan Backs Shift On Debt

LEAD: What is the point of racing around Washington grabbing Federal dollars for New York City if bureaucratic gridlock prevents the city from using the money?

Federal Funds Hard to Spend, New York's Lawmakers Find

Mikael Backlund is a Swedish professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Mikael Backlund, Swedish ice hockey player

Mikael_Backlund

Shinji Kagawa is a Japanese professional footballer and football manager who plays as a midfielder. He is widely regarded as one of the best Japanese players of all time.

Shinji Kagawa, Japanese footballer

Shinji_Kagawa

Juan Osvaldo Lagares is a Dominican former professional baseball center fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Mets, Los Angeles Angels, and in the KBO League for the SSG Landers. Known for his defensive prowess, he won the National League Gold Glove Award in 2014.

Juan Lagares, Dominican baseball player

Juan_Lagares

Harry Edward Melling is an English actor known for playing Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films (2001–2010) and Harry Beltik in The Queen's Gambit (2020).

March 17, 1989

Headlines from March 17, 1989

Our Towns; 'A Lot of Poems': The Joy of Books In a Poor Town

Austerity Accord for Seamen's

WEEKENDER GUIDE

Soviets to Allow Private Farmers To Lease State Land for a Lifetime

On Eve of Tough Campaign, Koch Says He's Heterosexual

Billboard 200

Electric Youth

Don't Be Cruel

Appetite For Destruction

Traveling Wilburys

Forever Your Girl

Notable Births

Historical Context for March 17, 1989