June 10, 1996

In the beginning was the tune. And more than 25 years later that is how Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber still likes it to be. He writes the tunes for his hit musicals and lets others worry about what to do with the small fortune that "Cats," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Sunset Boulevard" and the like continue to earn him every year. It is proving to be a good arrangement. While Sir Andrew (he was knighted in 1992) continues to pen hummable tunes, the company that he formed in 1977 -- the bizarrely named Really Useful Group -- has begun to diversify in all directions and has now set its sights on becoming a global entertainment conglomerate.

The May 25 death of a 16-year-old Lakewood girl who drowned in a health club hot tub during a post-prom gathering has inspired bills in both houses of the State Legislature. The Assembly Consumer Affairs and Regulated Professions Committee will hear two bills today. One would require that a hot tub have a shutoff switch nearby and the other would require an alarm loud enough to summon attendants. Both measures would require spa operators to make daily inspections. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate. When Tanya Nickens, a junior at Lakewood High School, became wedged in a drain in the bottom of a hot tub at the Atlantic Club in Wall Township, it took several minutes for a club employee to reach a switch in the basement to shut off the water.

Prayers for the victim of last week's vicious assault in Central Park were offered in solemn services at Armenian Orthodox churches across the metropolitan area yesterday as the police intensified the hunt for the assailant and a grieving family kept a round-the-clock hospital vigil for the comatose woman. At the behest of the victim's mother, hundreds of worshipers at Armenian Orthodox rites on the East and West Sides of Manhattan, in Queens and on Long Island prayed amid flickering candles and medieval liturgical music for a woman whose victimization seemed to strike at the roots of the New York City psyche.

Early one morning in Brooklyn Family Court, a woman began to cry loudly in the crowded second-floor waiting room. "I want my baby," she screamed. People stared; some laughed. Nearby, a mother, her son and two lawyers, all trying to be heard over the din, discussed a plea agreement for the son. Suddenly, a dozen court officers raced through the room, scrambling to the third floor where a fight over a child had broken out.

Alliance in the Skies