October 9, 1995

Rudolph Franklin Crew agreed yesterday to accept the chancellorship of New York City's public schools, challenging New Yorkers to join him in a crusade to improve education that he likened to the civil rights struggle and promising to fundamentally change the system's central bureaucracy. "My first role is going to be to listen to people, to reach out to people, to synthesize a movement," he said. "And it is a movement. Some people will call it reform. Some will call it restructuring. This is not a faint-hearted exercise."

AFTER he pulverized the Yankees with two home runs worth seven runs Saturday night, Edgar Martinez was championed by Reginald Martinez Jackson, who used to own this month of October.

After rising steadily since 1991, single-family housing starts and sales in the New York metropolitan region are expected to decline this year. The slowing of the market comes despite the current low mortgage rates. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in the New York region was 7.82 percent on Sept. 22, down from a high of 9.39. percent in December of last year. Experts attribute the stagnant housing market to the general slowing of the economy in the area, particularly the lack of new jobs.

NOW WHAT?: The visit warmed hearts and stoked tempers, but a hard thing to gauge is whether what many described as an event of a lifetime will endure. Page B5. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: The handful of people who saw him up close offered a picture of the 75-year-old Pope as energetic and engaging. Page B5. TWICE BLESSED: At Newark Airport, the departing Pontiff thanked the police who had protected him during his visit with kisses and blessings for their children. Page B5.

A Scandal Costs Daiwa Its Chairman and President The president of Daiwa Bank, Akira Fujita, resigned his post early today to take responsibility for a $1.1 billion bond trading scandal. And the company's chairman, Sumio Abekawa, will leave his post by March.