June 6, 1993

IN a city where the rules of engagement demand that politicians tell convincing stories in public and reporters publicly pretend to believe them, the Vice President's Thursday night appearance on "Nightline" came as something of a shock. Several hours earlier, President Clinton had announced that he was withdrawing the nomination of his longtime friend Lani Guinier for assistant attorney general for civil rights because he had decided that her theories for empowering black Americans were, after all, too radical. He had said his decision was motivated not by any political concerns but solely by a reading of Ms. Guinier's writings -- which Mr. Clinton said he had only read and understood that day for the first time.

Take a walk along 59th Street, east of First Avenue, check out the neo-Colonial town house at No. 440, and you might think the building belongs in a historic district. Well, the nearest such district is blocks away, and the building's facade dates from 1993. The building is the new home of Zoheir and Azita Aghravi and their three children. Looking for a larger apartment, and contemplating a resettlement in the suburbs, Mrs. Aghravi, a broker with Eastern Consolidated Properties, found a listing for a late-19th-century tenement building.

AS a steady stream of Range Rovers, BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes cruised by the entrance to the Westchester Country Club here on a recent spring afternoon, a dozen striking workers lounged patiently on the side of the road, just as they had almost every day for nine months. The strikers -- 75 bartenders, waiters, cooks and dishwashers who walked off the job on Aug. 12 -- attracted hardly a passing glance as they chatted among themselves, occasionally exchanging a few cardboard placards emblazoned with the name of their union, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 100, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Tomorrow, however, barring an 11th-hour settlement, the small and quiet group of pickets will grow exponentially as the strikers call in union reinforcements from throughout the New York City area to carry out a planned threat to disrupt the opening of the weeklong Buick Classic Golf Tournament, a nationally televised sports event that last year raised nearly $1.5 million for 14 Westchester hospitals and several hundred thousand dollars for the Westchester Country Club, one of the most prestigious clubs in the country with one of the finest championship golf courses. Among those who are expected to play are Fred Couples, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite. Dormitory Evictions In a victory for the union, the National Labor Relations Board last week declined to support a request by one of the Buick Classic's organizers, United Hospital of Port Chester, to designate one of the four entrances off-limits to the strikers, meaning that all who attend or participate in the Buick Classic must cross a picket line. According to organizers of the event, the tournament last year attracted 100,000 spectators to the Westchester Country Club during the course of the week.

ARE banks starting to get more friendly? Do they actually want to lend more money, and to attract the deposits needed to make those loans? If the answer to those questions is yes, it represents a big change from the situation that prevailed over the past couple of years. In the wake of loan debacles, banks decided to get smaller. Would-be borrowers found credit standards were tougher, and the interest rates offered to depositors tumbled.

Steffi Graf, tense in the beginning but remorseless by the conclusion of her three-set final with Mary Joe Fernandez this simmering afternoon, captured her first French Open title since 1988, and the 12th Grand Slam tournament of her career. She did it with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 comeback effort that underlined her recent recovery of the world's No. 1 ranking. "I had a few close matches here in the last few years," said Graf, who was runner-up to three-time champion Monica Seles in 1990 and 1992, "and I was always the one who had to play against the better player at the end, so I was thankful that it was the other way around today."