June 19, 1995

When Michael Lee went to Chinatown in 1991 to be an undercover police officer, he was paired with a charismatic, genial detective with an infectious love of life. His name was John Gaw. Being a rookie still awed by police work, Officer Lee was smitten by his new partner's exuberance and self-confidence, and soon it became plain that he wanted to be everything Officer Gaw was. People who knew the men used to joke about how Officer Lee seemed to worship his partner. They would say, "Oh, there's Mike trying to be John again." And they would chuckle.

In his five years as president of St. Peter's College in Jersey City, the Rev. Daniel A. Degnan took satisfaction in seeing the school's enrollment increase steadily, to about 3,500 students. Tonight, as he prepares to step down at the end of the month, he will be honored by 400 leaders in business, education and government at a black-tie dinner at Mayfair Farms in West Orange.

The engineer tried to stop the train the moment he spotted a man lying on the tracks early Saturday, but it was too late. The police said the man, Eric Huff, 26, of Parsippany was drunk and lying on the tracks near the Mount Tabor station when his legs were severed by a New Jersey Transit train. He was flown by helicopter to University Hospital in Newark, where he was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday.

This is the only county in New Jersey without a community college, and a state education panel indicated on Friday that it should stay that way. Meeting in Newark, the members of a subcommittee of the State Commission on Higher Education questioned enrollment projections and the estimated cost of creating a community college in Cape May County. The subcommittee suggested instead that students attend a branch of another county's community college, which could be located in Cape May County.

The debutante disappeared 68 years ago, removed from New Orleans society like a piece of chipped china. A car pulled up to her house and carried her away, 60 miles up the dark River Road to a hospital compound guarded by tall fences and discretion. Nuns in white robes and stiff winged hats took the young woman inside to join the sick, the crippled and the anonymous. Back in New Orleans the neighbors wondered what had happened to Betty, the beautiful 19-year-old daughter of a proud family, but the secret gathered dust.

THE MURKY WORLD OF CHINATOWN OFFICERS Officers John Gaw and Michael Lee were partners on both sides of the law, officials say. As the authorities tell it, the two spent virtually their entire police careers on the payrolls of high-level Chinatown criminals, feeding them advance information about raids on their gambling and prostitution dens. Their story is emerging as the New York City Police Department grapples with a succession of scandals involving misconduct and criticism that the department has been slow to spot wrongdoing. Detective Gaw, the senior partner, operated with such audacity -- he invited cops and criminals alike to his wedding -- that his career raises questions about why the department did not find out about him sooner. [ Page A1. ] REFUGEES SEIZE A DETENTION CENTER Frustration flared into violence at an immigrant detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., that has been buffeted by charges of mistreating the illegal aliens who are held there. A ragtag band of refugees took over the building, demolished much of the interior of the Esmor detention center and barricaded themselves in for five hours before the center was stormed by law enforcement officers. [ A1. ] The Esmor detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., stood out as one of the harshest in the country, some immigration lawyers said. [ B5. ] A Sudanese immigrant tells of her ordeal at Esmor detention center. [ B5. ] NEW YORK CITY NEIGHBORLY ACT TURNS TRAGIC Firefighters and neighbors say Robert Pearson is a hero for holding a bedsheet over the edge of his 11th-floor balcony so a downstairs neighbor could climb out of her burning apartment in midtown Manhattan. But Mr. Pearson does not see it that way. He is overwhelmed, instead, by what he could not do -- that he could not help another neighbor who lost his grip on the sheet and tumbled 11 stories into the building's courtyard. The man who fell was listed in very critical condition at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center with major head injuries and serious burns. [ B3. ] A WEEK OF GAY PRIDE CELEBRATIONS BEGINS Beginning a week of celebrations that will culminate in a march down Fifth Avenue, hundreds of gay and lesbian New Yorkers filled Union Square Park for what was billed as a rally but looked more like an enormous summertime family picnic. One family stepped on stage to make a point about Father's Day. "Being heterosexual doesn't make you a good parent," Doug Robinson said. "A good parent is someone who is willing to go the distance with their child." [ B3. ] TEEN-AGER SLAIN IN BARBECUE FIGHT A Queens teen-ager who struggled through high school and dropped out, only to rebound and earn his high school equivalency diploma in a ceremony, was rewarded with a party from his parents. But at the graduation barbecue, he and neighbors got into a fight that ended in a spray of gunfire that left the teen-ager dead, the police and witnesses said. The youth, Stephen Pettigrew, 17, was shot in the head and died on the street in front of his home. Witnesses and the police said the neighbors and the teen-agers fought after some of the youths broke malt liquor bottles in the street. [ B2. ] FEUD WILL FADE; SCHOOLS' PROBLEM WON'T Yes, the Mayor and the Schools Chancellor of New York City do not get along, which the whole world must know by now. But underlying the personal feud that led to Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines's resignation last week is a more fundamental problem, and it will not go away when Mr. Cortines does. It's that the school system is this odd duck -- independent from the Mayor, but reliant on him for its money. [ Metro Matters by Joyce Purnick. B4. ] REGION CLERICS DECRY YEARBOOK SLUR It was referred to only as "the incident," but the racial slur discovered in a high school yearbook found its way into Greenwich, Conn., churches, condemned by nearly a dozen ministers who urged their congregants to begin a healing process. "This dastardly deed is the boil of a consciousness that has to be exposed and cleansed," the Rev. Avery C. Manchester told the congregation at the nondenominational First Church of Round Hill. [ B2. ] Chronicle B10

Svetlana Aleksandrovna was visiting her parents near Budyonnovsk with her 3-year-old son, Filip, and her younger sister, Larisa, 23, when Chechen militants seized the town on Wednesday. The three were taken hostage, and all she could think of was "how my parents would bury us -- three coffins in the courtyard here -- and I wondered which of my photographs they would choose for my headstone." Her husband, in St. Petersburg, still does not know that she and Filip were taken hostage, she said in a long interview in her parents' house in this village a few miles east of Budyonnovsk. Her parents did not want to worry him, she said, unrolling a much-creased telegram he sent here that starts, "So, how's life?"

The well-laid plans of Commissioner David Stern to achieve quick and easy labor peace in the National Basketball Association encountered an angry roadblock yesterday in the form of agents and players who said they had been kept uninformed on the negotiations. With the league and the players union apparently close enough to an agreement that ratification meetings of the owners and player representatives have been scheduled for this week, the union's agent advisory committee accused Simon Gourdine, the union's executive director, of breaching his obligations to the players by refusing to disclose to them details of the negotiations and possible agreement.

Should the next schools chancellor be an educator whose heart beats with chalk dust, or a business executive with a keen eye for the budget? Should it be a savvy New Yorker with a political map of the city committed to memory, or an outsider with pristine credentials and broader experience? These are the among the questions being asked as the New York City Board of Education once again begins the arduous process of picking a new chancellor now that Ramon C. Cortines is stepping down after only two years in office and many bruising battles with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Consider the new T-shirt on sale near Pennsylvania Station, a souvenir for the discerning tourist who wants to communicate with New York City natives in their own tongue: "How to Use the F-Word." The T-shirt's four-letter Berlitz course lists ways to insert that versatile word into everyday phrases like "Who are you?" and "Pass the salt." Consider the number of times that same word is uttered in "Do the Right Thing," the Spike Lee movie set in Brooklyn: 182, to describe everything from the heat to a slice of pizza.

It was by far the biggest shot of the little man's life, 209 yards of carry over hill and heather and heartbreak to win the United States Open. Corey Pavin had come a very long way for this. For too many years now, he had endured the left-handed compliment -- best player never to have won a major championship. Now, if he could hit the green, he could lose the label forever and take his place among the giants of the game. With a Great White Shark in his wake and a distant 18th green in his sights, Pavin drew back his 4-wood today at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and hit one of the greatest pressure shots in the 100-year history of this championship. It landed just short of the slippery, sloping green and ran up toward the hole.

Two weeks into his Hollywood career, Edgar Bronfman Jr., president of the Seagram Company and acting head of MCA Inc., has endured a crash course in the entertainment business, and found the journey as turbulent as any of the rides he now owns at MCA's Universal Studios theme parks. At this point, it is hard to tell whether Mr. Bronfman is in over his head or is the shrewdest negotiator in town.