February 26, 1995

Dexter Manley is in uniform, all right it is orange and says "County Jail." He has crack cocaine to thank for his last six disoriented months, but at least he can toss and turn on a cot now. Just like week, he was curling up on a doormat. Manley has met the enemy and it is 6 feet 4 inches, 260 pounds out of Oklahoma State: him.

The Grand Central subway station, the city's busiest and -- according to the architect in charge of renovating it -- one of the dirtiest looking, is to get a complete face lift starting in November. The $82 million project is financed by Federal and state funds and designed by Gruzen Samton Architects. It will focus more on new surfaces than on reconstruction, said Peter Samton, the partner in charge of a 24-person design team.

Men don't dare leer or mock their female colleagues at the sensitivity training sessions that Stephen M. Paskoff conducts at workplaces around the country, where he preaches civility between the sexes and compliance with anti-discrimination laws. But during these same seminars, some women, without compunction, spit stereotypic insults at the men. And one female manager, who hired Mr. Paskoff to quiet gender strife among her employees, displays on her office wall a snide cartoon that says, "If you want the job done right, get a woman to do it."

Ulster Talks Gaining Support As Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland begin to digest new proposals on the province's future, they remain sharply divided. But most say they want their leaders to sit down and negotiate. Page 3. Suburb vs. Suburb Lakewood, Ohio, typifies the bane of older suburbs: fighting what used to be urban problems while competing with newer, outlying areas. Page 18. Hard Luck in Long Beach Long Beach, Calif., may soon suffer another economic setback, the closing of its naval shipyard. Page 18.

IT is a Thursday around noon, and an elderly blind man needs a seat on the No. 1 train in lower Manhattan. But a man is sprawled out across four seats, despite the label that says "Priority seating for persons with disabilities." The blind man tries to sit, lands on the sleeping man's ankles and stands again. Ralph Rivera, 43, a rough-complexioned defense attorney who grew up on the Upper West Side, narrows his eyes, decides. A solid figure in his black coat, he shoots across the aisle, leans over and presses against the sleeping man's back. "C'mon, buddy, get up," he says.