February 28, 1993

As fate or changing times would have it, two major projects now under way explore different but related aspects of the gay experience in America: life before the outbreak of AIDS, and life after. Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia," which just finished filming, is the first big-budget Hollywood movie to tackle AIDS and homophobia. "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City," a six-hour television mini-series starring Olympia Dukakis, begins filming in the spring. The British production is based on Mr. Maupin's novel of life -- largely gay life -- in San Francisco around 1974, before AIDS came to light. The tangled tale of the Maupin "Tales" appears on page 27. Here is the story of the making of "Philadelphia."

In a modestly lighted corner of the Pete Rose Ballpark Cafe, the familiar-looking man with the broad face and direct eyes and slightly upturned lip sat in a booth and wrote his signature in blue pen on a stack of cards with his baseball picture. It was early afternoon on a recent Sunday and Pete Rose handed the cards to the tourists and sundry locals who approached.

THERE'S a Grateful Dead song that goes, "Got some things to talk about, here beside the rising tide." Those words may not be humming in everyone's head, but 17 years ago, when a group of "Deadheads" living together in Bayville opened a natural-food store, they were inspired to name it Rising Tide, for the new wave of food that they were offering, for the ocean nearby and for the music they so loved.

THE market for one-family homes in the suburban New York metropolitan region, much of which has been in decline for the last five years, appears to have bottomed out in most areas, and, in some places, such as Northern New Jersey, a modest recovery seems to be under way. Real estate brokers attribute the trend to low mortgage interest rates, realistic prices set by sellers, the dearth of new construction and a small surge of first-time buyers who were priced out of the market in the mid-80's and frightened out in the late 80's and early 90's.

It may be the exhibition that New York loves to hate, but the world would be a duller place without the Whitney Biennial to kick around every two years. This informative, if hardly infallible, barometer of contemporary art has been part of the scene since 1932; its latest incarnation, which will include 80 artists, will arrive on Thursday. Over the years, the biennial has undergone major and minor adjustments. For the first decade, the artists invited selected their own works for the show, until it was noticed that instead of choosing their best efforts they sometimes sent pieces that were for sale. Beginning in 1937, the museum held two annuals a year -- painting in the fall, and sculpture and other media in the spring. Not surprisingly, the exhibition became a regular event for many American artists: Georgia O'Keeffe was in 22, Charles Sheeler in 29 and Raphael Soyer, maybe the record-holder, was in 38.