November 22, 1991

It was as an admiring outsider from Piscataway that Bob Wolfe took up a bar-stool bet recently that he could name more famous names associated with Princeton than anyone else could -- from Albert Einstein, always the first on anyone's list when the subject comes up around here, to Brooke Shields, the screen ingenue who took a degree in French and ceramics from Princeton University in 1987. Moving from wager to quest, Mr. Wolfe, a computer programmer with A.T.& T., recently brought out a small monograph, "Where the Famous Lived in Princeton," with a map, a Baedeker of the great and the merely famous who once called Princeton home.

The Soviet Union's major creditors agreed today to allow the fragmented Union to defer repayment of principal for up to a year, thus postponing up to $6 billion in payments and rescuing it from the brink of default. The Soviet Union amassed a foreign debt estimated at $65 billion to $70 billion, and was facing what one Western official described as "an extremely grave liquidity situation" because of the breakdown of central authority since the Kremlin coup in August and a sharp slowdown in oil and gas exports and economic activity in general.

Buffeted by the recession and humbled somewhat by the mixed results of its ambitious innovations of the last decade, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is pulling back. It is no longer planning the incinerators, industrial parks and other economic development projects that occupied it in the 80's. The huge agency -- the largest, most varied, most powerful port authority in the country -- is returning to basics, concentrating its money, expertise and attention on renewing its prime assets: the region's airports, trans-Hudson bridges and tunnels, the port and the PATH rail line that connects Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken and Manhattan. And even with $1.7 billion in annual revenue, its ability to finance everything it would like to do is uncertain. Following a Mandate "We're in a period, and I think it will be a sustained period, of limited resources," said Stanley Brezenoff, who became the Port Authority's executive director last year and who once served as Edward I. Koch's first deputy mayor. "Like everyone else in the region, we're experiencing the effects of the recession."

The New York City assistant commissioner for street reconstruction has been removed from his job amid revelations that city contractors used watered-down concrete and violated safety rules at three major street repair projects -- violations that the city was told about but did little to correct. The violations have put the city in jeopardy of losing tens of millions of dollars in Federal highway money and have made the street work more susceptible to crumbling and possibly even unsafe.

TOUGH TIMES FOR GOVERNORS Angry about tax increases imposed in troubled economic times, residents of New Jersey and Connecticut are taking out their discontents on their Governors, giving them generally dismal approval ratings in a New York Times/WCBS-TV News poll. While only a quarter of those polled in the two states said they approved of their Governor's performance, New York's Governor, Mario M. Cuomo, received somewhat stronger support, with a 37 percent approval rating. Page A1. NEW YORK CITY STREETS OFFICIAL IS REASSIGNED New York City's assistant commissioner for street reconstruction has been moved to another job amid revelations that the city may lose tens of millions of dollars in Federal highway funds because city contractors used watered-down concrete and violated safety rules on three major street repair projects. Page A1. DISSENSION IN THE COMMUTER RANKS In subway stations and at bus stops around the city, the proposed 25-cent fare increase is cause for indignation. Many straphangers and bus riders say that their wallets have already been pinched enough by the recession and that the Transit Authority should not ask them to solve its financial problems. Page B3. S.I. STUDENT SHOOTS 3, KILLING ONE Pelted by bottles, a high school student retaliated by opening fire on three other students, the police said. One is dead. Page B3. A NEW LIBRARY FOR THE LIBRARY In an unusual financing arrangement, the New York Public Library has assembled more than $70 million to buy part of the old B. Altman department store on Fifth Avenue to create a new science, industry and business library. Page B2. City Council offers its own budget plan. Page B3. Police to tighten standards for misdemeanor tickets. Page B3. REGION PROGRESS OR NO PROGRESS? While Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders spoke publicly about making significant progress in their negotiations over a multiyear financial plan, their aides painted a picture of confusion and inertia in closed-door budget talks. Page B5. DESEGREGATION CASE: IN WHOSE COURT? State lawyers state argued that a lawsuit attacking the de facto segregation that divides Hartford from its suburbs raises questions of social policy far too sweeping and complex for a single judge to decide. The case, they said, should first go to the State Supreme Court. Page B5. RETURNING TO 'REPUBLICAN ROOTS' Connecticut's top Republican legislators, who have spent the year leading a coalition of moderates and conservatives against a tax on wages, said they were returning to their "Republican roots." They presented a plan to replace the three-month-old income tax, with $300 million in spending cuts as its centerpiece. Page B5. PROPERTY TAX RISE VETOED IN SUFFOLK The Suffolk County Executive vetoed a $51 million property tax increase adopted by the Republican-controlled County Legislature and proposed an alternative plan that he said would avoid a tax increase. Page B5. Our Towns B4