November 25, 1990

THE Giants (10-0) are unbeaten. They have a huge division lead over the Eagles (6-4). They can clinch the division title today, five weeks before the regular season ends, by beating the Eagles in Philadelphia. So why are the Giants only slight favorites? Because the Eagles are at home, because they have won four straight games, because they have become comfortable with their new offense, because their defense is so relentless and physical and because they have always played tough against the Giants.

The southern twang is back in country music. So is the honeyed sob and the catch in the throat, the plink of a mandolin, the woozy swoop of pedal steel guitar. Young, smiling men in cowboy hats (like Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson) and women vying to be the next Patsy Cline (K. D. Lang, Reba McIntyre, Patty Loveless, Kelly Willis, Suzy Boguss) talk up their rural roots as they reign over the country charts. Country music has reclaimed the sound of its glory days, the honky-tonk of the 1950's and early 60's, but the new traditionalist movement mostly has to do with musical form. It evokes the sound of honky-tonk while the lyrics avoid honky-tonk's gritty specifics. It purveys pop escapism in spiffy rented cowboy garb for an audience that has expanded into the suburbs. Instead of looking optimistically to the future like the bulk of pop, country portrays a halcyon past as refuge.

The Knicks played poorly again yesterday. They lost at home again, their fourth defeat in their six games at the Garden this season. Is it time for panic? Coach Stu Jackson says no, but the Knicks' dismal 107-97 effort against the Milwaukee Bucks came after they had played their poorest game of the season last Tuesday night at the Garden against Houston. The losses follow a 3-1 western trip and an outstanding showing against the 76ers in their first game back home. As Milwaukee was putting the finishing touches its victory yesterday, Al Bianchi, the Knicks general manager, was pacing the hallway. "We're a better team than that," he said.

DESPITE daily countdowns, the coming holidays always seem to catch most of us by surprise as we shop and plan get-togethers and prepare festive foods for family and friends. Hosts finding time in short supply and money in much the same condition might consider swapping dinner out for a gala brunch. At this moment, the area's restaurants are draping ropes of evergreens, tying bows and stringing lights, creating a mood as festive at brunch as at dinner. Here we have focused on restaurants that promise to celebrate the season with at least a bit of holiday glitter -- in some places the decorations will be unabashedly lavish -- and that can also offer a superb kitchen or a cozy hearth or an astounding view, vistas otherwise unseen in these days of early sunsets. And certainly dining at midday will encourage those weary revelers who find night driving difficult and welcome the thought of arriving and departing in daylight.

SOME of South Florida's steadiest commercial development, spurred in part by a new east-west interstate highway, is taking place in central Broward County halfway between Fort Lauderdale and the Everglades. While the development of office and warehouse space has slowed around Miami to the south and virtually stopped in Boca Raton to the north, construction has begun on nine major business parks in the middle-class suburbs of Sunrise, Plantation and Davie. I-595 opened late in 1989, although the last interchange is not expected to be completed until February. The area's first Class A office space, an eight-story building just north of I-595 in Plantation about 10 miles west of Fort Lauderdale, is nearing completion. The 179,000 square feet will be leased at $15.50 to $21 a square foot, said Les Tager, vice president of HRA, the Hartford Insurance Group's real estate development arm. The building is the first of four planned for the 60-acre Cornerstone Office Park. Other business parks taking shape along the 13 miles of I-595 are a 52-acre industrial foreign trade zone being built by Trammel Crow in Davie on the south side of the highway and a 612-acre mixed-use business park called Sawgrass International Corporate Park in Sunrise, just northwest of Cornerstone Park. Developed by the Stiles Corporation of Fort Lauderdale since 1987 -- while I-595 was still under construction -- Sawgrass has 867,000 square feet of occupied Class B office and industrial space and 200,000 more under construction. Stiles plans to have 6.9 million square feet on completion. Last month, Sawgrass Mills, a 2.2 million-square-foot discount shopping mall with access to I-595, opened in Sunrise. Developed by the Western Development Corporation of Washington, Sawgrass Mills is a discount mall with two miles of storefronts. Sunrise, Plantation and Davie are growing commercially in part because of the type of communities they have become. Each a town of about 50,000 people, they average about five people of working age for every two retirees and have reasonably priced homes and good education facilities for potential employees, Mr. Tager said. But I-595 has been just as important because it has made them a distribution hub for all of South Florida, connecting them directly to Fort Lauderdale's airport and deep-water port as well as to all of Florida's major north-south highways. "Because of 595, development in west Broward didn't slow down nearly as much as the rest of South Florida up through the second quarter of this year," said Thomas Powers, vice president of Goodkin Research, a Fort Lauderdale real estate analysis company.