August 25, 1993

Mayor David N. Dinkins stood his ground yesterday during a grueling daylong questioning by a lawyer trying to show that the Mayor permitted violence against Hasidic Jews to go unchecked in Crown Heights two years ago. The lawyer was representing the Hasidim of Crown Heights, who are suing Mr. Dinkins and the city. During a break in the questioning, conducted at Gracie Mansion, the Mayor suggested that the lawsuit had been brought, in essence, to do him political damage by keeping questions about Crown Heights alive as he seeks re-election.

In another executive shake-up reflecting the soaring yen and hard times for Japan's auto makers, the Mazda Motor Corporation dismissed its top American executive today and said it would reduce its headquarters staff in Irvine, Calif., by about 35 percent. Clark J. Vitulli, who left the Chrysler Corporation in 1989 to run Mazda's American sales operations, was let go along with four other top executives. Mr. Vitulli's title, executive vice president of operations, was eliminated, Mazda said.

COULD this be the once-elegant Leslie Nielsen? Inside the restaurant, waiters didn't know whether to eject the actor or to dissolve in embarrassed laughter. Nearby diners were caught between astonishment and shame. A movie actor making such undignified noises! Mickey Rourke might do this, but here was the cinematic captain of the S.S. Poseidon with the ennobling white hair attacking the high-ceilinged back room with the breezy reports of a hand-held whoopee cushion, a device he has toted globally for 18 years. "I've done it on almost every network, at the White House, in Japan, Denmark, Holland, Australia," he said. He was unrepentant.

Asseyez-vous. You can again -- sit down, that is -- in the public atrium of Le Parker Meridien Hotel in mid-Manhattan. Eighteen spindly black chairs, vaguely neo-classical and marginally comfortable, now line the mirrored hall at 119 West 56th Street, or "56ieme Rue," as the sign says.

The Clinton Administration asked an appeals court today to overturn a ruling that United States trade officials must prepare an environmental-impact statement, a task that would seriously delay and possibly doom the North American Free Trade Agreement. The tribunal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is expected to rule by late next month. If it does not reverse the lower-court decision, the prospects for approval of the agreement darken considerably.