September 6, 1995

In a move to add new legitimacy to his attempt to gain control of the Chrysler Corporation, Kirk Kerkorian, the company's largest and most dissatisfied shareholder, hired the automobile giant's former chief financial officer yesterday. The hiring of the executive, Jerome B. York, sets the stage for a possible battle by Mr. Kerkorian to win seats on the Chrysler board for his own handpicked slate of directors. In a regulatory filing late yesterday, Mr. Kerkorian said he was considering such a fight to elect Mr. York to the Chrysler board.

NEVER mind that she was born in California, raised in Idaho and has the broad-shouldered, outdoorsy good looks that are more likely to summon up visions of hiking in the Tetons than shoving into the subway. Mariel Hemingway considers herself a New Yorker. Certainly, she looks like one in her pin-stripe Donna Karan power dress, seated behind a large desk on the elegant set of "Central Park West," the prime-time soap opera about rich, hip, beautiful overachievers colliding in the city's toniest orbits. The CBS series, which is being shot on location in New York, begins on Sept. 13 at 9 P.M.

One of five men charged with raping a woman who had passed out in a northern New York State bar has agreed to testify against the others in exchange for avoiding jail time, the latest twist in a case that drew national attention when the defendants were initially just fined $750 each. The man, Gregory L. Streeter, 29, pleaded guilty in St. Lawrence County Court in Canton yesterday to sexual abuse. He admitted that he had sexual intercourse with the victim, 24 at the time, in 1991 after she collapsed from drinking too many cocktails at the Casablanca restaurant in nearby Gouverneur, 95 miles north of Syracuse. In return for his testimony against the other four on first-degree rape charges this fall, the State Attorney General's office is expected to recommend that he be placed on probation with no prison time.

If the opening of New York City schools this week seems more chaotic than usual, consider the case of Karen Bloom, would-be teacher, who woke up yesterday unemployed, by midmorning was hired as a substitute at Public School 124 and by noon had landed a full-time teaching job at P.S. 111. Yesterday, on the first day 65,000 New York City teachers returned from summer vacation, principals were still making last-minute staffing decisions after an angry summer of budget negotiations ended without resolving basic questions, like how many teachers the city will have, how large classes will be and which teachers will teach where.

Robert A. Spina, the embattled Police Chief who was found by a Superior Court judge in Essex County to have abused his wife, returned to his post yesterday as his six-week paid leave of absence came to an end. "I'm not very happy about his return," said Herbert Waldman, president of the Town Council, which tried unsuccessfully last week to have Mr. Spina extend his leave.