October 8, 1995

URBAN VISTA 3 Phantom buildings: a touch of the past in the present.

URBAN VISTA 3 Phantom buildings: a touch of the past in the present. NEW YORKERS & CO. 4 Mort Berkowitz, a 20-year veteran of street fair management, encounters some stormy weather. LETTERS 13 PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 15 A Public spectacle in Astor Place; briefly shown films get another shot in Astoria. MOVIE CLOCK 14 What's showing at the local movie houses, today through Thursday. GOOD EATING 16 The tour of midtown west: braised wild boar at Borsalino; fondue with confidence at La Bonne Soupe. SOAPBOX 17 If graffiti is wrong, how can placing ads on school buses be right? And the story of a little boy and an ugly chair.

WITH elections for Suffolk County Executive and all 18 seats in the County Legislature next month, a retiring incumbent has altered the political landscape by questioning whether Suffolk can do without $35 million in sales-tax revenue next year. The legislator, Herbert W. Davis, 66, Republican of Yaphank whose term expires in December, said he would withhold support for a proposal by County Executive Robert J. Gaffney, also a Republican, to forgo the revenue until he saw evidence that the loss would not result in unexpected property-tax increases, increased borrowing or a 1996 county budget that would lack the money to deliver what it promised.

A DECADE after General Motors created the Saturn Corporation as a separate company to build and sell small cars in a new way, there is considerable evidence of its success. Customers snap up every available Saturn at list price, and they speak enthusiastically, without prompting, about the "Saturn spirit." Some 44,000 owners and families attended a "homecoming" last summer at the company's plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and another 130,000 took part in festivities at local dealerships. The company says 75 percent of its buyers are people who never previously considered a G.M. product.

A DECADE after General Motors created the Saturn Corporation as a separate company to build and sell small cars in a new way, there is considerable evidence of its success. Customers snap up every available Saturn at list price, and they speak enthusiastically, without prompting, about the "Saturn spirit." Some 44,000 owners and families attended a "homecoming" last summer at the company's plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and another 130,000 took part in festivities at local dealerships. The company says 75 percent of its buyers are people who never previously considered a G.M. product.