January 27, 1994

A Federal judge abruptly ordered the Green Point Savings Bank yesterday to halt its long-delayed initial public stock offering. The order came just hours after New York State banking regulators gave the stock offering their final approval, brushing aside a request by the Republic New York Corporation to make a last-minute takeover bid for Green Point, which is based in Queens. Republic had previously made several hostile attempts to block the stock offering and acquire the bank.

Under pressure from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the chairman of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation said yesterday that he would eliminate 1,300 jobs immediately through attrition and layoffs to help close an unexpected $160 million shortfall in the corporation's budget this year. The chairman, Luis A. Miranda Jr., said that the reduction in jobs, which he will submit to the corporation's 16-member board today, would save $10 million this year and $40 million next year without seriously harming medical care. The job cuts, 2.7 percent of the agency's 49,000 employees, would include 300 managerial jobs and 1,000 other nonmedical workers, including unionized employees like orderlies, housekeepers and food-service workers. Mayor's Office Endorses Plan The Mayor's office last night endorsed the reductions, which represent the first move by the administration to make good on Mr. Giuliani's campaign pledge to reduce the size of government without slashing services. "I think it's a victory for everybody," said Deputy Mayor Peter J. Powers. "When you have to make up a deficit, you have to make tough decisions."

Bob Sarferty hates having to thaw the locks on his cookie-delivery truck with an acetylene torch. He hates shivering in the cab because the heater quit. He hates driving all day because his partner won't. He hates bickering with stock boys in grocery stores because he tracks dirt on just-mopped floors. He hates feeling the snow in the bottom of his shoe. "Enough's enough," he said yesterday between stops at supermarkets on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "On top of the snow, everyone has an attitude."

The Seagram Company arrived in Ukraine two years ago, eager to do business in a vast, untapped market where the people were known for their fondness for vodka. The company was pushed along on a romantic notion -- that it was returning to the homeland of its founder -- and it had grand plans for a new vodka that could be sold here and exported to Russia, as well as to the West. There would be a plush showcase store in decaying downtown Kiev. The store, replete with fine Canadian maple and Ukrainian marble, towering ceilings and glittering chandeliers, was unveiled by the scion of Seagram, Edgar M. Bronfman, the chairman and chief executive, in July.

A Smooth Recovery Is Seen: Growth Without Inflation Economists are hailing the U.S. recovery as a model expansion because of its growth without inflation and because it was achieved without a big tax cut or a burst of Government spending -- the tools of fiscal policy for the last three decades. Page D1. Liberals Left on Sidelines As the President leans ever more urgently toward a centrist agenda on welfare, crime and the military, a forlorn band of sidelined liberals fight among themselves. Page A16. Solarz Nomination in Doubt An inquiry against Representative Stephen J. Solarz has ended, but it is unclear whether he remains a potential Ambassador to India. Page A9.