April 12, 1992

The 15-year-old, 80-member Throgs Neck Volunteer Ambulance Corps -- one of 53 volunteer units around the city -- serves 16,000 households in the Bronx, answers 70 to 100 calls a month and hopes to begin building a no-frills, one-story, 2,000-square-foot headquarters in May. "We took a minimal building and tried to enhance it,"said the Riverdale-based architect, Daniel Hammerman, who is donating his services.

THE Nassau and Suffolk County Executives, similar in temperaments and facing similar financial turmoil in government, are moving separately to show themselves as leaders in times of trouble. But critics of the Nassau chief, Thomas S. Gulotta, and his Suffolk counterpart, Robert J. Gaffney, both Republicans, say each may lack the hard-edged leadership qualities that the times demand.

After six months of saber-rattling and a 10-day strike, what exactly did the hockey players' union gain in a settlement with team owners that was announced at midnight Friday in the Plaza Hotel? Plenty. They retained permission to drink fluids on the bench and to use a private restroom during intermission. They get most of the summer off. They got amnesty for the strikers. And they kept the right to buy good tickets for most of the big games.

One sign that the long awaited rebirth of Bradhurst, one of Harlem's most impoverished sections, is finally under way is the completion of the first phase of Sass Plaza, a complex that will provide permanent housing for the homeless. On Thursday a combination ribbon-cutting and ground-breaking ceremony will mark the completion of a gut rehabilitation of the building at 263-65 West 152d Street, with 26 two-bedroom units, and the construction of an eight-story apartment building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 152d and 153rd Streets with 69 two- and three-bedroom units. The development will include a 5,000-square-foot community center on 153d Street. The complex has been named for Dr. John J. Sass, pastor of St. Matthew's Baptist Church, in recognition of his 50 years of community service.

THOMAS SEBAS said he had a bad feeling when he left his car at the New Haven train station early one morning last December. Mr. Sebas, an Ansonia resident, said his 1983 Celica GT -- with more than 100,000 miles -- was parked across the street from the city's police headquarters. But that did not comfort him, he said, because his father's car had recently been stolen right out of his driveway in Stratford. "After I got on the train, I looked back and thought maybe I shouldn't have left the car there," said Mr. Sebas. "I thought maybe I should have left the car at home."