August 29, 1991

What often makes New York City politics such a vibrant spectator sport is its lack of subtlety. Grudges that would be borne privately in other cities explode into public view here. Tales of political paybacks and payoffs are worn proudly as emblems of power, not badges of shame. So it is in the City Council race in the Bronx's 15th District, where former allies are engaged in a battle that is unabashedly about retribution.

The economy contracted during the second quarter instead of expanding, revised Government figures showed today, suggesting that the recession lasted longer than had previously been thought. Total output of goods and services edged down at an annual rate of a tenth of 1 percent, a tiny decline that nevertheless contrasted with the Commerce Department's estimate a month ago that output rose at a pace of four-tenths of 1 percent in the April-June period.

The subway motorman whose train derailed early yesterday in a crush of sheared metal and battered passengers was charged with manslaughter last night. The police said he had been drunk when he ran his train across a switch at high speed. Five people were killed and more than 200 injured in the crash, the worst New York subway disaster in 63 years. It plunged the city's transit system into chaos and left the Lexington Avenue IRT, the system's second-busiest line, so torn up that officials said it could be several days before it is running again.

With the future of the Soviet Union possibly hanging in the balance, delegates from the Russian republic and Soviet Parliament flew to the Ukraine on Wednesday to search for common ground with the nation's second most populous republic, which like many others is seized with secessionist fervor in the wake of the failed coup. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and a number of other prominent figures, notably Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak of Leningrad and Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former Foreign Minister, issued ever more urgent warnings that the Soviet Union must survive, even if in a new and yet undecided form.

TALK of roses that are blue, instead of the present range of colors from whites and creams and yellows to tangerines and reds, is not especially new. There are tales that the Moors in Spain had them in medieval times. If they did, their blue tones were produced by putting indigo water around their roots, to which they bloomed blue -- or bluish -- in protest, not out of genetic destiny.