February 18, 1996

Restoration is to begin next April on the century-old Farmingdale station of the Long Island Rail Road, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The station's original section dates to 1896, but an extension housing electrical equipment was added in 1910 when the station also became a stop on a trolley line between Halesite-Huntington and Amityville. The project, one of the first in New York State to be financed under a Federal progam known as Istea (pronounced "ice tea"), will include replacing damaged brick and the roof and restoring the wooden interior of the waiting room, where walls were covered with green tile 25 years ago following a fire. The entire restoration is expected to cost about $255,000 when completed next October.

Many prominent Republicans say they fear that the rancor in the Presidential contest has so magnified tensions among social and economic conservatives that the party risks unraveling much like the Democrats did in their failed efforts to win the Presidency in most of the 1970's and 1980's. Buoyed by their takeover of Congress in 1994, Republicans had expected the party to rally on the Presidential level and win back the White House. Instead, many said they were worried that the emergence of Patrick J. Buchanan as an energetic competitor for the nomination, and the relative weakness of the front-runner, Senator Bob Dole, have brought to the forefront divisions that for years the party tried to play down.

MAKING IT WORK 3 Blue-Collar Blues: As hockey gathers glitz at the Garden, class resentment boils in "Blue Heaven."

IN August, the Netscape Communications Corporation held one of the most successful initial public stock offerings in Silicon Valley history. In a single day, the year-old company, with just $17 million in sales, was valued at more than $3 billion. And the stock kept climbing. It was an exciting moment for Netscape employees, many of whom had instant personal fortunes -- on paper, at least. But almost as exciting was the day three months later when the underwriter, Morgan Stanley, decided Netscape's stock was strong enough to release the lock-out on its sale by non-officers. That's when the payoff became real.

Evolve or die: It is as true in the automotive world as in a tropical jungle. And the evolution of the Honda species has proved, over the years, a prime example of natural selection. Until recently, Honda was one of the world's few vehicle manufacturers to sell nothing but cars. Now its offspring seem to have mutated to fill nearly every niche in the market. In addition to a mini-van (the Odyssey) and two sport utility vehicles (the compact Honda Passport and the big Acura SLX, both made by Isuzu), the company has taken a page from Toyota and cross-bred a Civic compact car with a sport utility to come up with the CR-V.

President Clinton has decided to endorse a huge project to protect the Everglades by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to take farmland out of production and restore a more natural flow of fresh water across Florida's swampy southern half, according to senior Administration officials. Environmentalists have been urging such a project for years over intense opposition from the region's sugar cane growers. It would be one of the biggest ecological restoration efforts ever undertaken, the Administration officials said.

THE TIME: A RECENT SATURDAY afternoon. The place: the Cross County Multiplex, a 10-screen theater with all-weather carpeting and a video-game nook featuring Tekken 2. The theater happens to be in Yonkers but could just as easily be in Any Burb, U.S.A. The scene: the time-honored quest of adolescents to buy tickets to an R-rated movie, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. Sometimes you get in, sometimes you don't.

Trying to salvage a foundering residential real estate deal? Market a brownstone worth millions? Or maybe you're just curious about the history of residential construction in the city? The Real Estate Board of New York, a trade association that has represented the city's real estate industry over the last century, will offer insights into such matters with seminars on negotiation, high-end properties and local history, along with some merrymaking, during its First Conference & Convention for Residential Brokers at the New York Hilton on Friday from 8 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.

Steve Forbes has his flat tax. Bob Dole chants the mantra of the balanced budget. Patrick J. Buchanan is known for his protectionist positions on world trade. Unlike his rivals, Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee Governor who has moved into the top tier of the Republican Presidential race with his third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, is not closely identified with specific policy proposals. Yet in the last year he has constructed a foundation of what he calls "radical ideas" on crucial domestic issues like welfare, immigration, education and political reform.

Of the 1.9 million fans who paid to see a baseball game at Wrigley Field last year there were undoubtedly some who had a fleeting fantasy: to step out into the bright sunshine against the famous ivy-covered panoramic backdrop and play ball. Only one had the absolute power to make such fantasy truth. All Ryne Sandberg, the 10-time All-Star second baseman for the Cubs whose retirement stunned baseball in 1994, needed was to believe the dream enough to make it his reality.

When it comes to creating instant wealth, no place can match Wall Street. With a good idea, you can become a millionaire almost immediately, even if your company has no revenues and a lot of competition. If, that is, you are in a hot industry. In one way, it is inspiring to see infant companies get money from the public. Once they would have had to make the rounds of venture capitalists, who tend to demand a big share of the profits in return for financing companies. The venture capitalists say such terms are needed to compensate them for the promising ideas that don't work out, but the entrepreneurs still resent having to give up so much just to get money.

A Chicago-bound Amtrak train creeping through a snowstorm smashed into a local train just outside Washington yesterday afternoon in a fiery crash that left commuter coaches crumpled like accordians. Twelve people were killed and more than 20 were injured, officials said. Mortimer Downey, a Deputy Secretary of Transportation, said the crash "appears to be a head-on collision." He said that investigators were checking the signals, switches, tracks and equipment, as well as the orders given by the dispatcher supervising that stretch of track, who was in a control center hundreds of miles away, in Jacksonville, Fla.