RICHARD DOWLING had so much fun at Morristown's First Night last New Year's Eve that he framed and hung a poster of its program on his office wall.

"It reminds me that people can be high in spirit without alcohol and can appreciate each other in a cultural setting," said Mr. Dowling, a Madison resident who is a drug counselor at Union County College in Cranford. "It was one of the best experiences I've ever had, and my wife and I plan to go to Summit's premier First Night this year."

More Communities Are Organizing 'First Night' Fetes

MARK ROTHKO
A Biography.
By James E. B. Breslin.
Illustrated. 700 pp. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press. $39.95.

The Passion of Mark Rothko

  Sports is sometimes dismissed as immune to the real world. But in 1993, the most traumatic sports year in memory, stark reality intruded more than ever on what is supposed to be fun and games but seldom was.   Tragedy too often shrouded triumph. Sports too often mourned.

Too Little To Cheer, Too Much To Mourn

THE election of Christine Todd Whitman has shaken the political foundation beneath one of the largest, most controversial public works projects in state history, the Passaic River Flood Protection Project.

Throughout her gubernatorial campaign, Mrs. Whitman expressed opposition to the project, which would divert flood waters from the upper Passaic River and its tributaries into Newark Bay through a 20-mile-long, 40-foot-wide tunnel.

Flood Tunnel's Future Is Uncertain

  Arts and Leisure/Section 2   Times critics cast a last lingering look at 1993.  Book Review/Section 7   Hilton Kramer reviews "Mark Rothko: A Biography," by James E. B. Breslin.

TODAY'S SECTIONS

WHO shoplifts at supermarkets? 

"You'd be surprised," said Mel Weitz, who owns 19 Foodtown Melmart stores on the Island. "They're often everyday customers who drive up in a Cadillac or Mercedes."

Supermarkets Wage Hi-Tech War on Theft

  A pilot program to provide low-cost loans to housing subcontracting companies owned by women or members of minority groups has been established by the New York City Housing Partnership. The program is financed by a revolving line of credit committed by Citibank to the Housing Partnership, the nonprofit housing arm of the New York City Partnership, a civic and business group.    "This is a demonstration program that we hope will be the basis of increased private lending and risk-sharing by government," said Fred Wilpon, the Housing Partnership's chairman.

POSTINGS: For Women and Minorities; Low-Cost Loan Pilot

  Prozac had its say, but style really spoke to us this year, in buzzwords, sound bites and catch phrases that tell the fashions and trends of '93.  SHAQ ATTACK  With Michael Jordan's retirement, the 7-foot-1, 305-pound Shaquille O'Neal has become basketball's biggest marketing and style force. He made the cover of GQ and Rolling Stone and earns roughly $8 million a year in endorsements (from the likes of Reebok and Pepsi). More style points accrued with the release of his rap album, "Shaq Diesel."

Listening to 1993

DR. MEL GOLDSTEIN does not remember why Richard Crafts killed his wife and threw her body in a woodchipper. He does remember that it snowed five inches in Newtown that night.

The 48-year-old chief meteorologist for WTNH-TV in New Haven tends to remember other important events less for the facts than for the precipitation.

How Was the Weather? Dr. Mel Remembers

WHEN Dr. Carl Austin Weiss Jr. started to introduce himself on a receiving line at a recent wedding he was cut off in midsentence. "Oh, I know who you are," the bridegroom said.  "You're the man whose father shot Huey Long." 

Remarks like that have been delivered at unexpected moments to Dr. Weiss, who is 58. But Dr. Weiss, a Southerner who has lived and practiced orthopedics on Long Island since the 1960's, said such incidents did not faze him.

An L.I. Legacy: Seeking Clues On Huey Long

  Steve Young watched the last quarter in a windbreaker, Warren Moon's bruised ribs sapped him of his breath, but the man still ticking at the end of today's game was a fullback named Gary Brown.   The Houston Oilers could not run out the clock on the Buffalo Bills in last year's playoffs, but that was before they had the Brown alternative. Today, San Francisco's Steve Bono took his turn doing a Joe Montana impression, but his comeback failed because the 49ers' defense could not pry the ball from Brown or from backup quarterback Cody Carlson in the final 6 minutes 41 seconds. Brown bulldozed for 144 rushing yards, the Oilers won their 10th straight game, 10-7, and Houston is looking more and more like a Buddy Ryan team every day.

49ers Meet Their Match: The Oilers Are for Real

  A Balkan War of the Words   Although Serbo-Croatian is a single language, leaders of ethnic groups throughout the former Yugoslavia are focusing on differences in dialect to support nationalistic goals. Page 3. Employing the Homeless    A Brooklyn program provides jobs to homeless men who pay for room and board, but for reasons of bureaucracy the plan has not been copied elsewhere in New York City. Page 31. Farm Won't See 200th Year    Founded in 1794, the oldest farm in Dutchess County, N.Y., is going out of business. It is a victim of evaporating profits as new neighbors, with more needs, bring higher taxes. Page 37. Lower Tally for Russia Party   Final election results gave the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party 59 of 225 parliamentary seats apportioned by party, down from the 67 it had been projected to gain. Page 18. Norman Vincent Peale Dies    The upbeat pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, whose "Power of Positive Thinking" remained on the best-seller lists for years, was 95 years old. Page 40.

INSIDE

  More than three years after the initial euphoria over reunification, Germans are beginning to discover that they have to build a new country not only in the formerly Communist east, but also in the industrial west, requiring new ways of thinking and more sacrifice than they ever imagined.   Those in the west learned quickly that absorbing East Germany entailed more than enlarging and enriching the old Federal Republic of Germany. The new, united Germany is finding that the post-cold-war world is a more harshly competitive place than it was before. For many western Germans, the biggest shock is the discovery that the forces that made their country the richest welfare state in Europe and made its economy the Continent's most powerful can no longer guarantee the annual raises and increases in leisure time and the social security that they took for granted for decades. Ruhr Steel in Crisis    Nowhere is the shock more dramatic than here in the Ruhr, where recession and inexpensive imports have thrown the steel industry, long the core of the region's prosperity, into crisis.

Germans Find Unity May Mean Long-Term Change and Sacrifice

  IT is a pair of perfectly good blue-cloth pumps, ruined by the speeding bus that just splashed a wave of black slush on you. Tornadoes of fast-food wrappers that ricochet off tall buildings. An apartment that greets you at the end of the day with a hunk of ice on the kitchen floor and a recorded message on your super's answering machine that says he is in St. Lucia for the next week.   It is a frigid walk to the nearest subway stop, which, of course, is not so near at all, rush-hour trains full of people who would rather die than miss work (and the chance to sneeze their germs into your hair on the way), and an object that resembles your car buried beneath six feet of rock-hard snow in front of your apartment, courtesy of the Department of Transportation.

Taming the Mean Season; Sleet, Snow, No Heat, Flu . . .  Winter's Plagues Are Many. So Are Its Comforts and Joys

  This is a season of spirituality and doubt -- at least for many of the baby boom generation who turned away from organized religion once they left their parents' homes. But as they have become parents themselves, many have been forced to grapple anew with the place of religion in their lives.   Theirs is often a wrenching search. They are torn between guilt, reluctance and nostalgia, between the sense that religion would be good for their children and their own lack of belief in some spiritual doctrines, as well as their discomfort with the way many religious institutions are run. A Sense of Duty    In a society that seems more frightening and amoral than ever, many parents say they yearn for a moral safety net, a place that will reinforce the values they hope to teach at home. Others feel they should at least expose children to religion, as a possible source of comfort and faith. Still others conclude that religion is not the answer.

Generation That Left Church Goes Back With Its Children

WESTCHESTER school districts are exploring ways to broaden participation in educational decisions, involving teachers and other staff members, parents, students and the community. They are responding, in part, to the State Education Department's requirement that every district submit a plan by Feb. 1 for involving parents and teachers in decision-making at each school. The state is allowing the districts to determine how their committees will function and which issues they will confront. 

While some districts may be offering minimum responses to a state request, many have been involving their communities in a broad range of collaborations for years. They say that participants with different viewpoints bring new ideas and enthusiasm for carrying out change.

An Evolving Role For the Community In School Decisions

  When Mike Reynolds vowed a year and a half ago to find a way to keep repeat offenders locked up for life, it seemed just a howl of pain by a grieving father whose teen-age daughter had been shot in the head at point-blank range by a man with a long criminal record.   But Mr. Reynolds's personal crusade to tighten sentencing for career criminals has become a political juggernaut here in California, the scene in recent weeks of several high-profile crimes, including the abduction and slaying of 12-year-old Polly Klaas at the hands of a twice-convicted kidnapper.

Drive to Keep Repeat Felons In Prison Gains in California

  IT WAS a wonderful year in the stock market, but not for all companies. Some suffered for treating their customers badly, some for being too nice to them. Some executives found opportunity in adversity, some made their own opportunity and some showed fortuitous timing. And any year in which a football player becomes a Wall Street star clearly deserves note. There will, unfortunately, be no presentation ceremony for the following, richly deserved, awards. Fire the Messenger Award    To Prudential Securities, for dumping its ad agency as bad publicity grew. The new agency is to find a slogan to replace "the most important thing we earn is your trust," which became embarrassing after Prudential agreed to pay $371 million to customers for abusing that trust when it sold highly dubious limited partnerships in the 1980's. Our suggested slogan: "Let buygones be bygones."  Employment Security Award   To the top executives of General Motors, who gave themselves employment contracts in the wake of the departure to Volkswagen of Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, the first (and so far only) G.M. executive to prove to have marketable skills.  Brilliant Management Award   To Maytag, the appliance giant, whose British executives cleverly calculated that they could bolster sales by offering two free trans-Atlantic plane tickets to anyone who bought at least $375 worth of appliances. They were stunned when 200,000 people in Britain and Ireland tried to take them up on it. Fool Me Once . . . Award   To Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn, the large New York law firm. Proskauer signed on to represent Towers Financial, the collapsing empire of the erstwhile publisher of The New York Post, Steven Hoffenberg, in suits alleging Towers had welched on fees it owed to other law firms. Having failed to get payment up front, Proskauer wound up suing Mr. Hoffenberg and Towers for -- surprise -- unpaid legal fees. Watch What I Do . . . Award   To Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computer. On March 9, he proclaimed that Dell was clearly in "the winner's circle" and said that "the power of our direct marketing approach continues to be underestimated." Within the next three weeks, he took in $11.3 million selling Dell stock, at an average price of $38 a share. By summer, as profits turned to losses, the shares were fetching less than $15. Best Self-Deal Award   To John Malone, the president and chief executive of Tele-Communications Inc. In 1991, he spun off Liberty Media from the parent company, on terms that discouraged public holders from taking Liberty while allowing him to buy a lot of its shares without putting up much cash. Now T.C.I. is repurchasing Liberty -- on vastly more friendly terms -- as a prelude to its own acquisition by Bell Atlantic. But for the earlier transactions, the Bell Atlantic takeover might have been worth less than $100 million to Mr. Malone. Now, his stake will be worth about $1 billion. Due Diligence Award: Lawyer Division   To the New York firm of Squadron, Ellenoff, Plesent, Sheinfeld & Sorkin. The firm helped to take public a company whose chief financial officer turned out to be a disbarred lawyer who had served time after being convicted of stealing money from clients. Asked if the firm knew about the criminal record, which was not disclosed to investors, a partner shrugged off the query. "That is not the responsibility of the law firm," explained Howard Squadron. Due Diligence Award: Executive Division   To John Sculley, who left Apple Computer to take over Spectrum Information Technologies. He expressed surprise when asked about a variety of Spectrum's past brushes with regulatory authorities. "It sounds like you know more about it than I do at this point," he told a reporter. All Bluster, No Bite Award   To Robert Crandall of American Airlines, for his repeated threats to replace flight attendants if they struck, without having any effective plan to deal with a walkout. When it happened just before Thanksgiving, there was chaos, red ink and a quick surrender by American. Labor Leader Of the Year Award   To Denise Hedges, head of the flight attendants union at American, for calling Mr. Crandall's bluff and providing organized labor with one of its few prominent victories in recent years. Stock Promoter Of the Year Award   To Lawrence Taylor, the linebacker for the New York Giants and part-time president of All-Pro Products, a company with virtually no operations whose stock almost tripled in its first seven days of trading. After that move, Mr. Taylor forecast it would double again, leaving him with stock worth $20 million, for which he had paid $5,750. So far, the market value is holding at about $10 million.  I.P.O. Reversal Award: Winning Division   To Motor Coach Industries, the bus manufacturer sold to the public by the Dial Corporation, at $13 a share in August. The price cracked within minutes of the beginning of trading, and went as low as $11 in the next few weeks. But in November, the company agreed to be acquired by a Mexican firm -- for stock worth $16.72 a share. I.P.O. Reversal Award: Losing Division   To Mathsoft, a software company that went public in February at $13, with insiders selling 1.25 million shares. The shares traded for $23 the first day. But they fell when the company posted disappointing profits in April, and again in July when it said it was losing money. By September the share price was below $5 -- and is only a bit higher now. Bad P.R. Award   To CS First Boston. In a year in which Wall Street compensation rose into the stratosphere, it was the only firm that came in for heavy media criticism -- not for paying too much but for paying too little. Some investment bankers -- insulted by annual bonuses of less than $1 million -- drew sympathy as they fled to other, less parsimonious, firms.  Clouded Crystal Ball Award   To Bennett LeBow, for his forecast that Skybox International would be trading above $14 a share by early 1994. Brooke Group, Mr. LeBow's troubled conglomerate, had valued Skybox at that price in distributing shares as part of a plan to evade making good on a previous guarantee about Brooke's stock price. The current value of Skybox is under $7.  Career Timing Award   To Louis V. Gerstner Jr., for abandoning tobacco by resigning as chief executive of RJR Nabisco a few days before Philip Morris devastated industry profits by slashing cigarette prices. Mr. Gerstner took over I.B.M., where the bad news was already known to everyone.  Money Can't Buy Harmony Award   To the members of the Haft family, who built a retail empire consisting of the Dart Drug, Trak Auto and Crown Book chains and in the process came to thoroughly despise each other. Herbert, the dad, fired one son. Another son lined up with Dad, but Mom and Sis stood with the fired son. Everybody has sued everybody else, repeatedly. Public Service Award   To Carlos Alves dos Santos, former budget director of Brazil, who was found to have $1.7 million stuffed in his mattress, plus $300,000 and 212 pounds of gold (value, about $1 million) in safety deposit boxes.

The Honor Roll, of Sorts, for 1993

  "IT'S yellow," she explained to the blinking, uncomprehending man. "It's a yellow-looking substance that's coming out of his ear."   The subject was ear wax. The setting was parents' night. And the ear belonged to Chinedu Ezeriki, a fifth-grader in a parochial school uniform who could no longer hear his lessons.

Those People; An Unfinished Portrait of the Poor

THE educational credo at Little Silver Schools is simple: "We don't test children on something we don't teach," said the Superintendent, Thomas Gallagher. 

The philosophy must work, because last year eighth graders in that Monmouth County hamlet scored among the highest in the state on the Early Warning Test, set up to measure academic progress. More than 95 percent of middle schoolers in Little Silver passed the highest levels in reading, math and writing.

How Top-Scoring Schools Get That Way

  In renovating the facade of 555 Fifth Avenue, the owner and the architect decided not to follow the white brick road.   "We wanted to make an elegant statement on Fifth Avenue," said Peter L. DiCapua, senior vice president of Atco Properties and Management, the owner and manager.

POSTINGS: New Facade on a 1955 Building; Making 'an Elegant Statement on Fifth Avenue'

  The Central Intelligence Agency has told President Clinton that North Korea probably has developed one or two nuclear bombs, according to Administration officials.   The classified assessment -- supported by virtually all intelligence agencies but disputed by the State Department's analysts -- deepens the Administration's dilemma as it tries to fulfill Mr. Clinton's pledge that "North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb."

INTELLIGENCE STUDY SAYS NORTH KOREA HAS NUCLEAR BOMB

Dr. Jack Kevorkian says that he is through helping people commit suicide and that he will now devote his efforts to a campaign to make assisted suicide fully legal.

"I can't help humans who are suffering anymore, because I have given my word." Dr. Kevorkian said in an interview this week.

In Tactical Change, Kevorkian Promises To Halt Suicide Aid

THE Building and Design Center on Route 202 is a tribute to suburban consumerism. Featuring everything to furnish or decorate one's home under one roof, the mall is suitable for one-stop shopping. During store hours, a steady stream of shoppers shuttle from store to store, caught up in that most suburban of activities -- home improvement.

But behind a heavy metal door marked "Employees Only," one's preconceptions are likely to peel away like paint beneath a heat gun. Contained within the cavernous confines of what used to be a wallpaper emporium is the antidote to that which is mass-produced and predictable: Marc Weiner's Weinerville Studios.

'Nickelodeon Weinerville,' Inside a Cardboard-Box World

  IT was the Christmas of hope on Wall Street.   Ever since 1990, the financial community has entered the holiday season with profound doubts about the ability, or the willingness, of Americans to spend enough to make Christmas merry for retailers.

December 26, 1993

Headlines from December 26, 1993

More Communities Are Organizing 'First Night' Fetes

The Passion of Mark Rothko

Too Little To Cheer, Too Much To Mourn

Flood Tunnel's Future Is Uncertain

TODAY'S SECTIONS

Billboard 200

Music Box

Doggy Style

Vs.

Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell

Lethal Injection

Historical Context for December 26, 1993