December 11, 1995

Many young patients at Voorhees Pediatric Facility cannot leave the hospital because they depend on medical equipment for breathing and eating. On Tuesday, Voorhees is to celebrate the opening of a new school -- the first of its type in New Jersey -- specifically designed for such children. All five classrooms at the Bancroft School, which is adjacent to the hospital, are equipped with medical gas outlets, and each classroom is to have its own nurse. The school will be able to accommodate 65 students, hospital officials said.

Even in Mercer County, some people are not aware that their county operates a ski area. From time to time, there is talk of closing down the ski area in Belle Mountain, a perennial money loser that cost the county $145,000 last year. But when that happens, the public rises up in protest, said Frank Ragazzo, executive director of the Mercer County Park Commission. Last week, the Board of Freeholders voted 5 to 2 to reopen Belle Mountain, 18 miles north of Trenton on the Delaware River. "This is not the Poconos," Mr. Ragazzo said. "But it's good for kids and to learn on." The county hopes that weather conditions will allow snow-making by about Dec. 20. TERRY PRISTIN

Nearly 15,000 people crowded into Madison Square Garden yesterday to honor the memory of Yitzhak Rabin, braving a long, bone-chilling wait outside to accord the slain Israeli Prime Minister and his quest for peace the kind of unanimous mass tribute from American Jewry he never enjoyed while alive. So many Jews streamed in from Long Island and New Jersey, from Brooklyn and the Upper West Side, that several thousand were turned away at the arena's doors and missed sorrowful speeches by Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel, Vice President Al Gore and the widowed Leah Rabin.

French Leader Eases Stand

If Madison Square Garden had been a playground, someone would have yelled "Deuce," because that is what you say when the game is tied and proceeding too well for anyone to lose by only one basket. You had David Robinson's grace and muscle and the Knicks' improvisation and hustle. You had equal parts unreal and implausible mixed in with two parts impossible.