December 20, 1992

After a 16-year odyssey of marriage, separation, drug addiction and homelessness, a 33-year-old woman is ending a six-month stay at a home for mentally disturbed women run by a charity assisted by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She is ready to begin a new life. Another Neediest agency aided a woman who cared for her ill husband herself because she feared he would suffer in a nursing home. Articles, page 48.

Because it soars 52 stories over the small 19th-century mercantile lofts of lower Manhattan, Tribeca Tower cannot be missed. For the same reason, there is no disguising its distress. Hundreds of apartment windows are empty -- no curtains, lights, plants or other signs of occupancy. The sign on the front door on Duane Street, between Broadway and Church Street, says: "The sales office is temporarily closed . . . As soon as the Attorney General extends our offering plan, we shall resume sales, which we hope will be in the near future." It is signed by the developer, the DeMatteis Organizations of Uniondale, L.I.

TWO years ago tomorrow, I collapsed at my desk in the newsroom of The New York Times, writhed on the floor in a seizure and entered the world of AIDS. I had been, as far as I knew, absolutely healthy, and it took the doctors a few weeks to reach their diagnosis: full-blown AIDS, with a brain infection often fatal within four months. That I have lived these two years is a miracle. How long my luck will hold, no one knows. But for now, I am back working, a reporter with AIDS who covers AIDS.

The first job of the Federal Reserve System is to preserve the banking system. And as a new administration takes over in Washington, applause is in order for Alan Greenspan and his colleagues. This coming week was billed earlier in the year as the time for the "December surprise," when new Federal rules that took effect yesterday would lead to the shutdown of dozens of banks. The bank crisis in 1992, people kept muttering, was just like the savings and loan crisis in 1988 -- almost ignored during the campaign but sure to be a dominant problem for whoever won the election.

If you could explain why the Giants played like world-beaters today in whipping the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-21, you should be coaching these teams instead of watching them. The game had all the potential for a rout. The Chiefs were one victory away from making the National Football League playoffs. The Giants had lost their last five games, they had long since lost any playoff hopes and their coach, Ray Handley, is seemingly about to lose his job. The Chiefs were favored by 7 points on the road.

IT STARTED as the ultimate Japanese dream: a technology that promised a virtually inexhaustible supply of electricity to power Japan's factories and houses, and a quick, neat way for Japan to convert its growing piles of nuclear waste into an energy source that could keep the country running through wars in the Persian Gulf, natural disasters or political upheavals. Japan's bureaucrats, awash with success in autos and electronics, expected it to become another triumph for Japanese industrial policy. Now, week by week, Japan's most ambitious nuclear project is falling apart, variously described as an environmental disaster waiting to happen, an invitation to terrorists looking for fuel for nuclear weapons, and a financial fiasco for the Japanese taxpayers and utility shareholders. For the many admirers of Japanese industrial planning -- some of whom met in Little Rock, Ark., with President-elect Bill Clinton last week -- the experience is a cautionary tale. Even the masters of merging the talents of Government and industry can blow it, especially if they ignore fundamental changes in a market or a changing political atmosphere.

It's called "Cracks in the Pavement." The title makes it sound like a film noir thriller, a chillingly grim mystery by Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett set on the seamy side of a city dank and dark. But while it is most definitely not a mystery, its goal is to help solve what for many people has been one for years: how to fix all the cracked, buckled or broken pavements that cause pedestrian after pedestrian to trip the not-so-light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York. Its subtitle is "A New York Property Owner's Guide to Sidewalk Repair," and it has been published by the Municipal Art Society, the New York City Department of Transportation, the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the City Council as a manual for city property owners, explaining their rights and responsibilities for maintaining the sidewalks that adjoin their buildings and lots.

AS hundreds of millions of dollars in flood damages are tallied after last weekend's nor'easter, officials and erosion experts are looking ahead with dread to what could occur next, an even more devastating winter storm. With dunes and berms leveled along the South Shore and bluffs scarped and crumbling along Long Island Sound, a moderately powerful storm would do more than just bounce the rubble, the officials and experts warned.

His eyes, no longer troubled, can see clearly again. So when Kenny Anderson handles a basketball the rules are simple: No blinking allowed. Blink, and an Anderson no-look pass traveling at Mach speed will bounce off your head. No defense is too tight, no passing lane too small for Anderson to squeeze the ball through a galaxy of legs and elbows. His are the eyes the Nets envision someday leading the franchise to a National Basketball Association title. Far-fetched? Maybe, but Anderson is only a part of the Nets' talented youth movement, and title talk in New Jersey is not complete science fiction. His at least are the eyes of someone who has an outside shot at playing with the likes of Jordan or Shaquille or Ewing in February's All-Star Game.

Cutting short a trip to China, President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia rushed back to Moscow today, adding new drama to a rapidly developing fight for influence over Russia's new Prime Minister, and the next stage of the country's economic reforms. Speaking to reporters upon his arrival here this afternoon, Mr. Yeltsin said his presence was necessary to "start the formation of a new government immediately." He said he planned to meet on Sunday with Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, the new Prime Minister.

THE border war over New Jersey's efforts to lure New York companies across the Hudson River intensified last week when New York officials accused New Jersey of using real-estate brokers as agents to solicit New York businesses that had never expressed an interest in moving. New Jersey officials denied the charge. The exchange followed a spate of charges and denials after New Jersey's Nov. 30 announcement of a plan to use funds received from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to help finance its corporate outreach program. New York officials have called the move "improper," given that the Port Authority is a cooperative venture of the two states.

The social policy of the Clinton Administration is being shaped by separate and in some ways conflicting camps, represented both literally and metaphorically by the occupants of two red brick buildings on Capitol Hill. One houses the Children's Defense Fund, the child-advocacy group that has become a model of effective liberal lobbying. The other is home to the Democratic Leadership Council, which was founded to criticize and change that same liberal tradition.