October 13, 1993

Pedro Jose Gil was taught the value of hard work and discipline as a teen-ager, scrubbing dishes and running errands at his family's restaurant in Washington Heights, a neat, neighborly haunt a few steps from where a housing officer was killed last week. In a neighborhood where many young people are pulled by the lure of easy money and drugs, Mr. Gil, 22, was considered lucky to have ambitious parents whose modest success since arriving from the Dominican Republic served as a model for their children, friends and neighbors said.

Grand Central Terminal was closed last night after a fire that started on an unused train track spewed thick smoke throughout the lower level of the station, delaying more than 10,000 commuters who had to scramble for alternative routes home, said a spokesman for the Metro-North commuter railroad. With the railroad's signal and communications system knocked out by the fire, all Metro-North trains in and out of Grand Central Terminal were suspended after 8 P.M. Early today, Metro-North officials said the signal system was largely restored on all three of the railroad's lines late last night, but they added that some gaps remained. As a result, they warned that delays were still likely during the morning rush hour.

Interest rates are low, stock prices are high, individuals have more money to invest and corporations are issuing record amounts of new securities. It all adds up to higher earnings for Merrill Lynch & Company, which said yesterday that it earned a record $360 million in the third quarter, up 57 percent from the comparable period a year earlier.

A clearer demonstration of the global village that modern communications have created, and the land-mines that await American Presidents as a result, would be difficult to imagine. After more than a dozen American soldiers were killed in street-fighting in Somalia 10 days ago, President Clinton argued that it would be dangerous for the United States to pull out its troops at once, because doing so would only encourage "aggressors, thugs and terrorists" all over the world.

Following a fire last night that halted Metro-North commuter train service to Grand Central Terminal, railroad officials warned early today that delays were likely for this morning's rush hour because of damage to signals. Article, page B1.