June 24, 1990

LEAD: In an age when millionaire no longer sounds very rich, billionaire still has a certain ring to it. Last week, on Manhattan's East Side, two very different men, each of whom became the best-known ''billionaire'' of an era, could reflect on shifting fortunes.

LEAD: WHEN Robert G. Shamy began his teaching career as an elementary school teacher in Monroe Township in 1968, he immediately put his longstanding interest in archeology to good use. Aware that American Indian artifacts had been found in abundance in the community, which was then rural, he took his fourth-grade class on field trips to hunt for artifacts.

LEAD: It's hard to imagine that Dwight Gooden could start 32 games without completing one, but he did. That is, he did until last night when he not only started a game but dominated it, muzzling the Philadelphia Phillies by 3-0 and allowing just two hits and two walks for nine innings of mastery that led the Mets to their fifth consecutive victory and their 14th in 17 games.

LEAD: From the community health center where she works, Dr. Dianne C. Ritchie ministers to the poor and often-troubled people of the Bronx, taking the time to listen to the latest complaints of patients who have rarely had the luxury of seeing the same doctor twice in a row.

LEAD: SINCE at least 1927, when a startlingly large crowd of 30,000 waited outside a Harlem funeral parlor to pay respects to the entertainer Florence Mills, the black community in New York City has bathed its heroes in the most public expressions of love and support.