September 18, 1994

FEW have arrived at Harvard University this semester with quite the notice that surrounds one freshman, an 18-year-old from Chestnut Ridge who is suing his school district because he missed being valedictorian by 0.24 of a grade point. The student, Paul D. Siemens,wants Justice George M. Bergerman of New York State Supreme Court, who sits in New City, to require the East Ramapo School District of Rockland County to name Mr. Siemens valedictorian of the Spring Valley High School class of 1994. Mr. Siemens had been named salutatorian, the second-ranking scholarship title.

The southeast corner of Eighth Avenue and 43d Street may be one of New York's tawdrier intersections, but it has attracted some of the nation's best-known architects: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi. They are among the finalists for a hotel that officials hope will be built at that corner, together with an adjoining retail and entertainment strip on the north side of 42d Street. The four competing development teams were announced last week by the New York State Urban Development Corporation and New York City Econonomic Development Corporation, which expect to make the final selection by mid-November.

The gray stuccoed house at 157 East 70th Street became known over the years for the elegance of the art collection of the publisher S. I. Newhouse Jr. and his wife, Victoria, who made extensive renovations to what had once been two separate buildings -- including adding a two-story rear atrium sheathed in bullet-proof glass. In recent years the house has also reflected the vicissitudes of the Manhattan real-estate market. In February 1992 the house went on the market for $5.5 million. That August the price dropped to $4.8 million; then in December to $3.9 million. In February 1993 the price fell to $3 million.

DEPENDING on which school official is talking, New Jersey's long debated mandatory school bus seat belt law is either an important new child safety feature or an expensive and ineffective law that will only cause problems. The mandatory seat belt law, the first of its kind in the country, requires all new school buses to be equipped with seat belts and all riders to buckle up or face school disciplinary procedures.

MAKING IT WORK 3 Detective Richard Ianozzi works in a city of innocents, where there are more than enough cons and schemes to go around. NEW YORKERS & CO. 4 The AIDS epidemic is propelling one of the fastest-growing trends in medicine: intravenous drug treatments at home. PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 10 In Morningside Heights, paintings with a beat; in Jamaica, men who cook. MOVIE CLOCK 11 What's showing at the local movie houses, today through Thursday. GOOD EATING 12 Near Lincoln Center, popular performers for a new season: Duck risotto at Picholine; pot-au-feu at des Artistes. SOAPBOX 13 Comic. Italian. Crude. Blue Collar: How Hollywood portrays "outerborough" women. Plus, Photographer's Journal.