October 23, 1991

On the surface, the corporate office boom of the 1980's appears to have ended here with a crash. New office buildings stand empty, their hollow interiors pierced by the afternoon sun. Hand-lettered forwarding addresses are taped to the windows of closed stores. Traffic lights that break down on weekends stay broken; the city has decided not to call in technicians on overtime.

New York State's highest court yesterday narrowly upheld the 1989 agreement to close the Shoreham nuclear power station, removing one of the few remaining obstacles to the final dismantling of the plant. The 4-to-3 vote by the State Court of Appeals means that the Long Island Lighting Company, which owns Shoreham, can continue the process -- by now nearly irreversible -- of taking down the plant's systems and preparing it to be transferred to the state for decommissioning. Had the settlement been overturned, state officials said, a result would have meant increased delay and higher costs rather than the ultimate opening of Shoreham as a nuclear plant.

The Parliament of the Ukraine, considered the second-most-powerful Soviet republic after Russia, took its drive for independence a step further today and authorized creation of a 400,000-member republic army. The authorization, which had been expected with the strong anti-Moscow separatist mood sweeping the republic, did not immediately touch on the more controversial proposals from some officials to create the independent military arm from parts of the Soviet Army contingents now stationed in the republic.

A former senior official of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International told Congress today that he found it "impossible to believe" that Robert A. Altman did not know that First American Bankshares was secretly owned by B.C.C.I. while he president of the American bank. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Relations, the former B.C.C.I. executive, Abdur Sakhia, said he based his conclusion mainly on his frequent meetings with Mr. Altman during the 1980's. Mr. Sakhia said Mr. Altman would often discuss with him marketing strategies for First American, ways to bring in more business and other matters related to running the Washington-based bank.

LAST night, hundreds of invited guests descended on West 57th Street to salute the opening of Planet Hollywood, a sprawling restaurant and bar that is dedicated to the deep-down desire to be one with the silver screen, or at least to be somebody -- somebody famous, somebody else. Forget the free-range chicken. Let the free-range fantasy roll. The walls of Planet Hollywood curve around the 350 seats, placing diners at the epicenter of an alternate reality. A 40-foot mural dominates one wall. Movie memorabilia -- the dress that Dorothy wore in "The Wizard of Oz," James Dean's motorcycle -- are displayed in museum cases. Oh, and the menu. There are Buffalo wings, pizza bread, blackened fish and burgers. Dinner runs about $15.