LEAD: Only one in four of New York City's older teen-agers is in the labor force, less than half the rate in the nation as a whole and lower than that of other big cities, Federal statistics show.

Fewer New York Teen-Agers Have Their First Job

LEAD: WHILE all eyes have been on rebellious Lithuania in these days of imperial stress, Mikhail S. Gorbachev has entered a critical and precarious stage in the realization of his grand design for the Soviet Union.

  Gorbachev, at a Dizzying Height, Prepares to Kick Away the Ladder

LEAD: WHEN the Long Island Regional Planning Board recommended four months ago that summer houses and businesses on South Shore barrier beaches be razed if they were extensively damaged by storms or erosion, an outcry arose from property owners.

Managing Erosion At Barrier Beaches

LEAD: The record, which in its various forms has captured the musical passage of the nation from ragtime to rap, appears to have entered a death spiral.

Recording Enters a New Era, And You Can't Find It on LP

LEAD: ONE day after Gov. William A. O'Neill said he would not seek re-election, his Lieutenant Governor, Joseph J. Fauliso, made a similar announcement. ''There comes a time when you have to tear yourself away from it and make the break,'' said the 74-year-old Mr. Fauliso, who has been active in politics since the mid-1940's.

For Democrats' Loyal Soldier, Time to 'Make the Break'

LEAD: I was reading Shirley Hazzard's novel ''The Transit of Venus.'' Though I had admired her other books, I'd always resisted this one. It struck me as too pure somehow, too heroic, larger or finer than life and therefore unreal. But now I read it with an almost indescribable pleasure. There were sentences that brought tears of gratification to my eyes and raised the hairs on the nape of my neck.

GOOD BOOKS ABUT BEING SICK

LEAD: A baseball career can create a fantasylike effect on a man's life, but reality has intruded on Keith Hernandez's. One more disabling injury, he said, and his career is over.

Ultimatum On Injuries

LEAD: The 160-foot-high granite tower of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, which has been a fixture at the northwest corner of Central Park West and West 96th Street since the turn of the century, has been extensively damaged by water leaks in recent years and is in need of repair. To help, the New York Landmarks Conservancy has awarded the church an $8,000 grant from its Sacred Sites and Properties Fund for a study to determine the extent of the damage and recommend repairs.

POSTINGS: Repairing a Landmark;   Church to Study Water Damage

LEAD: Most, Czechoslovakia - On the edge of an open-pit mine in the mountains of Bohemia stands a small cluster of medieval buildings, the last reminder of a town that survives only in the minds of its former inhabitants.

  Central Europe's Grimy Coal Belt: Progress, Yes, but at What Cost?

LEAD: The Runnin' Rebels of Nevada-Las Vegas, a team that has scuffled and scrambled all season long, won a war of attrition this evening and in the process punctured Georgia Tech's lofty dreams of a national championship.

  Rebels Show Strength In 2d Half

LEAD: Duke defeated Arkansas, 97-83, and Nevada-Las Vegas beat Georgia Tech, 90-81, to advance to the championship game of the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament tomorrow night.

Duke and Las Vegas Gain N.C.A.A. Final

LEAD: We have been told that this collection of Duke University Blue Devils, a combination of athletes who have endured bitter disappointments in the semifinals of the national collegiate tournament and those who are here for the first time, is to be judged on its merits, unrelated to any emotional baggage from the past.

Duke to Meet U.N.L.V. in N.C.A.A. Final;   Final Flourish Hurts Arkansas

LEAD: Aviation Education Systems of Melville, L.I., sells preparatory courses to would-be air traffic controllers. The Southnet Corporation of Tampa, Fla., is asking hotels to use its telephone operator assistance services. Exten Ventures of San Diego calls itself a merchant banker and collects fees for helping tiny companies become publicly traded.

The Latest Penny-Stock Shuffle

LEAD: AT a time when homelessness and the shortage of affordable housing are high on the nation's political agenda, lawmakers and housing officials are grappling with the problem of how to prevent steep losses in the federally subsidized apartments built during the 60's and 70's.

Federally Subsidized Housing at Risk

LEAD: The Yves Saint Laurent Parfums Corporation, which has undergone several administrative mutations in the last decade, will move many of its production and office operations to an $11 million facility under construction in Orangeburg, N.Y. The move will consolidate operations now scattered in Manhattan, Mount Pocono, Pa., and France.

POSTINGS: Saint Laurent Consolidation;   Smell of Success

LEAD: LIKE squabbling marriage partners, Japan and the United States have tried one idea after another to overcome their differences, falling each time into a new round of recrimination. This year it finally seemed that they had decided to get some meaningful therapy. The trouble is that each country has hired the other to do the psychoanalyzing.

  The Negotiations With Japan Get Personal

LEAD: If the devil has all the best tunes, how do we explain the phenomenal success of the British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber? Even today, after eight hit musicals, one failure, one divorce and one requiem to his name, he still looks - well, if not angelic exactly, then rather like a choirboy in long trousers.

Lloyd Webber: Composer as Industry

LEAD: Home buyers in four cities may benefit from an easing of rules on the underwriting of loans by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac. And if you live in the New York metropolitan area, which is not covered by the rules change, the advice for applicants is ''bargain.'' Freddie Mac, the

POSTINGS: Freddie Mac Rules;   From 28 to 33%

LEAD: For as long as they have bought works of art, American museums have also sold them. The practice, known as deaccessioning, is hardly new. Neither is the debate it provokes, a debate invigorated by a spate of sales in the last few years of works by artists from Delacroix to Picasso, Boucher to Church.

  The High Cost of Selling Art

LEAD: JUST days after his basketball team had been catapulted out of the national spotlight, Steve Pikiell was back on the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs last week. He wasn't thrilled to be there. The Year of the Huskies was over. The last page had been ripped out of UConn's storybook season last Saturday when the team was defeated by Duke, 79-78 in overtime, in the N.C.A.A.

Till Final Buzzer, UConn's Glory Lit the State

INSIDE

LEAD: When Ben Hogan built what is generally considered the most reliable swing in history by thickening his callouses every day in a divot-filled cocoon, he influenced a generation of golfers to trust that the things we know best are the things that are learned, not taught.

  Forces Behind the Golf Swing: Teachers Find a Niche

LEAD: AS sure as crocuses unfurl and robins pull worms from the earth, spring has come to the Hamptons.

Hamptons Astir With The New Season

LEAD:    Warren Buffett, America's premier investor, tells how he does it.

Special Today: The Business World/Magazine Pt.2

LEAD: ELLIS ISLAND was the entry point to the United States for more than 12 million immigrants from 1892 to 1954. But by 1982, when a photography instructor at Montclair State College visited the island, he found, he said, that ''this important part of immigrant history had been left to rot.''

Ellis Island, 'Elegant' Ruins and All, Caught in Student Photos

Julia Harting is a German athlete who specialises in the discus throw. She won the silver medal at the 2016 European Championships, and has represented Germany at two Olympics.

April 1, 1990

Headlines from April 1, 1990

Fewer New York Teen-Agers Have Their First Job

Gorbachev, at a Dizzying Height, Prepares to Kick Away the Ladder

Managing Erosion At Barrier Beaches

Recording Enters a New Era, And You Can't Find It on LP

For Democrats' Loyal Soldier, Time to 'Make the Break'

Billboard 200

Forever Your Girl

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Nick Of Time

Soul Provider

...But Seriously

Notable Births

Historical Context for April 1, 1990