November 8, 1992

WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE . . . AND YOUNG Ia Drang: The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam. By Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway. Illustrated. 412 pp. New York: Random House. $25.

EFFORTS to revitalize 125th Street have gained momentum in recent months as new ventures have appeared on Harlem's main shopping, entertainment and business thoroughfare. Last month the Victoria 5 Theater, Central Harlem's only moviehouse, reopened after being dark for more than a year. In July a local businessman, Joseph Holland, opened a Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlor on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. And before the end of the year a branch of The Body Shop, a London-based cosmetics company, is to take space in the ground floor of the National Black Theater on the northeast corner of 125th Street and Fifth Avenue.

It has been a tough week for the Washington Huskies. On Thursday, they lost Billy Joe Hobert, their starting quarterback, for the first five games of the season after an investigation into a possibly improper loan. And today, they not only lost a game for the first time in more than two years but most likely will lose their No. 1 ranking and a shot at an unofficial national championship as well.

In 1969, a discussion began in Germany between the Government and industry about the development of a train without wheels, powered by electromagnets. After an investment of $1 billion of German taxpayers' money, the Transrapid train is now ready for use; its first route may be between the Orlando, Fla., airport and Disney World in 1996. It is too early to say whether the Transrapid, which travels at 180 miles an hour, will be a commercial success. But the development of this relatively quiet, fast and ecologically desirable train illustrates the way in which governments and private companies have frequently worked together in Europe on innovative but costly industrial projects.

He was one of the brash, bold reformers who swept into Congress 18 years ago on a wave of popular revulsion over Watergate and the Vietnam War. Elected at age 25, he was so boyish that he was carded in bars and mistaken for a Congressional page. And no one really begrudged him when, with an immature charm, he researched whether he could be called the youngest person ever to enter the Congress. Representative Thomas J. Downey of Amityville literally grew up in the marble corridors of the Capitol. He married during his tenure in Washington and made a home with his wife and children in a Capitol Hill townhouse.