June 15, 1997

Walking tours to be conducted of historic sites in three New York City neighborhoods--Park Slope section of Brooklyn, and Manhattan's Riverside-West End Historic District and Morningside Heights (S)

Pres Clinton makes broad appeal for racial reconciliation and vigorously defends affirmative action on college campuses; in California, state that leads movement against racial preference programs, Clinton's commmencement address at University of California at San Diego begins what he calls yearlong effort to lead America in 'great and unprecedented conversation about race' three decades after Kerner Commission found country to be moving towards two societies, 'one black, one white, separate and unequal'; Clinton acknowledges unfinished business between black and white Americans; he seeks to reframe debate in context of demographic changes, predicting that in half a century there would be no 'majority race,' but many different people either living separately and unequally, or drawing strength from each other; photo (L)

Foundation work has begun on 35-story, 446-unit luxury rental building, latest addition to huge Newport mixed-use center in Jersey City; vacancy rate for 3,500 existing riverfront apartments in Jersey City, nearly half in Newport, is less than 1 percent; rendering of new building (M)

Robert Lipsyte column offers postscripts to two stories related in earlier columns; Jong Chung, the dry cleaner known as Dr Stain who had a passion for lifting difficult stains, has moved to San Francisco and plans to francise his new dry cleaning system nationally; also, the Mear family of Woodmere, LI, continues its effort to have Young Israel of Woodmere restore name of their late daughter, Miralee Caryl, to the synagogue wall, from which it was removed so that a bigger contributor could be honored; drawing (M)

Article assesses Plymouth Breeze, Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Contour; photos (M)