September 20, 1993

Sunset's rays have splayed through Peter Alvarez's third-floor windows in Elmhurst, Queens, day after day for the last five months; a celestial array that lifts his spirits. The Elmhurst tanks -- those 200-foot monoliths that stood sentinel to the changing landscape of Queens and as harbingers of hair-tearing delay on the highway to Manhattan -- are down, deflated forever, their skeletal remains waiting to be dismantled.

America is about to start coming unwired. A decade after cellular telephones first captured the hearts of the hurried and the well-to-do by letting them stay plugged in without being pinned down, the Federal Government is about to clear the airwaves for an expansion of wireless offerings more sophisticated than anything available today.

In a major speech in which he sought to counter his opponent's contention that he is not aggressive enough as a crime fighter, Mayor David N. Dinkins yesterday provided details of his plan to combine the city's three police forces, give officers more advanced equipment and improve security in public schools. "I believe that by creating a climate of civility and decency and order in our neighborhoods, we'll let the pushers and the criminals know that this city is ours to enjoy -- not theirs to destroy," Mr. Dinkins said in a speech punctuated by repeated references to his vow of "no surrender."

This is Glamour Girl Day on the fifth floor of the Frances Schervier Home and Hospital in the Bronx. That means that Nikia Bispham, 18, wheels in a cart full of nail polishes and emery boards, tunes her big radio to a rhythm and blues station and settles down for two hours of chitchat and makeovers with an eager queue of white-haired ladies. Ann Finning, who wants her nails painted Cameo Pink, is fretting because she needs a good shampoo and set. The woman next to her is nodding off, but Mrs. Finning keeps up a stream of words: what happened at happy hour yesterday, a recent fall she had, what a lovely job Ms. Bispham is doing.

As President Clinton prepares for Wednesday's prime-time presentation of his plan for overhauling health care, his proposed ceiling on medical spending has emerged as one of the plan's most hotly debated aspects, prompting warnings of a degradation in the quality of care or even rationing. Braking medical spending as sharply as the President proposes -- cutting annual growth by more than half of what it has been in recent years -- could force strapped medical groups to shortchange patients, denying them useful tests and treatments, some doctors and insurance executives maintain. While these critics also fear for their own incomes and profits under the Clinton plan, their warnings are echoed by many economists. Safely Squeezable Nonsense, Administration officials say. They and many medical experts portray an American system so replete with inefficiency, duplication, overcharging and overuse of procedures that huge sums can safely be squeezed out for many years to come.