April 19, 1992

Serbian guerrillas pounded central Sarajevo with mortar shells today as a high-ranking American official arrived with humanitarian aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina and support for its independence and territorial integrity. Washington's confrontation with Serbia appeared to be heightening. The Serbian Foreign Ministry delivered a formal protest to the United States Embassy, calling American policy one-sided and anti-Serbian.

For Nancy Gonzalez and her 16-year-old son, Jimmy, moving to Kendall, a sprawling suburb southwest of here, has been part of living the American Dream. Ms. Gonzalez, a 41-year-old single parent who juggles three teaching jobs to earn $53,000 a year, came to the United States from Cuba when she was 11. By 1986 she had scraped together enough to pay $64,000 for a tiny three-bedroom, two-bath house just outside Miami's city limits. Four years later, she sold that house for $82,000 and traded up to a $130,000 home in Kendall with four bedrooms, a two-car garage, a pool and more than twice the living space she had before.

Is this the golden era of American banking? Those who are laughing at that question may not have pondered the latest profit reports from America's banks. They show profit margins heading ever upward, with a diminishing number of bad loans.

When it comes to famous New York City movie locations, Brooklyn's Flatbush section probably does not spring to mind. But filmmakers have been using the neighborhood's Victorian homes and picturesque residential streets for decades. Next Sunday, movie buffs will have a chance to see some of the Flatbush locations from past and future films and television productions on a house tour sponsored by the Flatbush Development Corporation. Among the stops on the tour, "Filmmaking in Flatbush: From Mary Pickford to Spike Lee," will be the residence that served as the boarding house, in "Sophie's Choice"; the house where scenes from the fact-based drama about Claus von Bulow's murder trial, "Reversal of Fortune," were filmed, and residences featured in two upcoming movies, Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" and "Glengarry Glenross."

Two Hartford architects, Edward T. Hapgood and Melvin H. Hapgood, have probably not received so much attention since the late 19th century, when the cousins were at the height of their practice. They designed stately homes in the city's West End, and Edward's commissions included the Rossia Insurance Company Building and (with Donn Barber) the original Travelers Insurance Company Buildings and the State Library and Supreme Court Building. Next Saturday, at 4 P.M., David F. Ransom, an architectural historian, is to deliver a lecture on the Hapgoods at the Stowe-Day Foundation, 77 Forest Street, at Farmington Avenue, in Hartford. His talk is to inaugurate an exhibition of photographs and drawings of the architects' works around Connecticut, drawn from the foundation library. This will be on view at 77 Forest Street, seven days a week, 9:30 A.M. to 4 P.M., through Sept. 7. Both the lecture and show are free.