October 24, 1993

TWO dramatically different but related images are evoked by "Mr. Open Niter," a new show being broadcast from here. One is the hubbub of a Broadway opening night, the other of a family huddled by the living room radio for an evening's entertainment. "It's all an illusion, all smoke and mirrors," said Madelon O'Shea, who with her husband, Rod, created the show.

IT'S been called a virus, a disease and the albatross around the neck of New Jersey's economy. Just the mention of the state's Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act could enrage the most mild-mannered of business owners who found themselves caught in the stranglehold of paperwork and red tape it dispensed. After it passed into law on Dec. 31, 1983, the act became probably the most controversial environmental law in the country. Intended to prevent the sale, transfer or abandonment of contaminated real estate, the act was soon criticized as creating a bureaucratic nightmare, impeding both cleanup and further economic development at the affected sites.

THE First Lady of New York City is about to deliver a brief speech. Its text is computer-printed in 14-point helvetica bold on a half-dozen file cards clutched in her left hand. Like all her speeches, this one was written by her press officer. As she always does, Joyce Dinkins read it through and shortened it. This is her third speech of the day. It will not be the last. Public speaking is far from her favorite endeavor. But as the daughter of one of the city's first black district leaders, Mrs. Dinkins, now 62, was weaned on calls to duty, and this particular duty is essential in a married life that often appears to be lived more for her husband than with him.

TO Itzhak Perlman, a polio victim at age 4 who gets around in a motorized wheelchair, wears leg braces and uses metal crutches to walk, the question of access is all-important. "A lot of people think access means the ability to get into a building, no matter where or how you can get into it, whether you get into it through a back alley, or through an elevator that usually carries garbage or food," the renowned violinist says. "But shouldn't it mean that you can get into the building through the front door with everybody else? That for me is true access." Not quite two years ago, the Federal Americans With Disabilities Act took effect, requiring that owners or operators of places of public accommodation remove architectural barriers to the disabled if the changes are "readily achievable." The law was hailed as a civil-rights statute that would remove many of the countless barriers that block the physically disabled from having easy access to offices, hotels, restaurants, theaters, airports and other public spaces.

Construction has been finished on the new $1.5 million, almost 10,000-square-foot home of the Flushing, Queens, branch of the Y.W.C.A. The building at 42-07 Parsons Boulevard, the first new building for the Y.W.C.A. of the City of New York since 1917, includes a large multipurpose room, a rooftop playground, two day-care rooms, classrooms, a computer room, a kitchen and several offices. Until now, the Flushing Y.W.C.A. operated out of several community centers, churches and other available spaces. "We are thrilled that we can finally offer our programs all under one roof," said Vivian Manning Fox, executive director of the city Y.W.C.A. "We can expand and implement programming to meet the community's demands and interests."