July 5, 1991

TO speak of the bridges of New York City is to conjure a realm where spidery cables lace brawny Brooklyn to towering Manhattan, where crisscrossed girders form triumphal arches high above the Hudson. But there is another realm of New York bridges, more than two dozen, each within walking distance of the next.

The confirmation of Robert M. Gates as Director of Central Intelligence is unlikely to be as easy or swift as the White House at first hoped, according to a number of senators on the Select Committee on Intelligence and some of their staff members. It is not that the mood of the committee has drastically shifted, at least not yet, or that the committee has uncovered a startling new piece of evidence that would disqualify the career Central Intelligence Agency official from the nation's top intelligence job for the second time. Confirmation hearings are expected to begin in mid-July.

For years, marketers have used spokesmen and spokeswomen to advertise their consumer products. Now, they are also using "spokesbrands" -- products from other marketers that serve as endorsers, just like human stars. The idea is for the spokesbrand's celebrated character to rub off on the product being advertised, the same way that Michael Jordan eating Wheaties cereal is meant to suggest to consumers that his basketball prowess is a bowlful of flakes away.

New York State's court system is the only one in the country, legal experts say, that requires the sequestering of jurors during deliberations in every criminal case -- from the notorious to the downright dull. Jurors are often astounded to learn that their service is bound to subject them to mandatory lodging (double occupancy) in some of New York's less renowned hotels and undistinguished chicken dinners from special "jurors' menus." Otherwise the requirement goes largely unnoticed -- except by the court officers who earn overtime because of it and whose union every year fights a proposal to do away with the requirement.

In its second major alliance in two days, the International Business Machines Corporation said today that it had agreed with the German electronics giant Siemens A.G. to build a factory in France that will cost about $700 million and will produce the world's most advanced computer memory chips. The deal is I.B.M.'s largest joint production agreement and provides a means of offsetting the immense costs of building a computer chip factory. Because the agreement with Siemens allows for additional partners, I.B.M. officials and industry analysts said the venture could improve the technological capabilities of Europe's struggling chip manufacturers. Alliance Already Made On Wednesday, I.B.M. and Apple Computer Inc., formerly fierce rivals, announced a broad technology agreement for the development of both hardware and software.