December 20, 1997

This growing old together had left the Knicks set in their ways. Not that there isn't some comfort in predictability. As a tradition, the Knick players dined on the soul food served up by Charles Oakley's mother at her home the night before the game here. Some other habits should be broken, though -- and, by the end of tonight, the Knicks had veered enough from their normal behavior to end their six-game losing streak on the road.

The developer Harry Macklowe said yesterday that he would dismantle the entire south facade of his 39-story tower at 540 Madison Avenue, brick by brick, rather than risk having another section of the wall break away from the building and tumble into the street. The painstaking job of removing the brick from the south wall of the tower at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and 55th Street is expected to start next week and to take weeks to complete. Engineers involved in the repairs say that it will cost $1.5 million to take down the facade and erect a new one, although, they say, the work should not force a further shutdown of Madison Avenue.

A few months ago, during one of those quiet moments she savors in her tiny Bed-Stuy apartment, Tamiko Little sat down on the living room windowsill and saw past and future collide in one searing moment. Across the street, a woman cried hysterically, watching helplessly as the police handed her two children to child welfare workers sitting in a van. Ms. Little turned away and flipped the channels on her television set, looking for some comedy that would bring elusive relief. ''I cried for that woman,'' she said. ''It's a hurtful feeling to see somebody have their children taken away. A lot of times I thought that could have been me. Especially when I got the call from the school.''

Asian economic crisis seen having profound economic and political implications for the United States trade deficit; some American workers could lose their jobs, and employers may feel pressure to hold down wages; reverse side is that flood of cheap imports could help hold down US inflation rate and eliminate need for higher interest rates; graph on US trade deficit with Pacific Rim countries and overall trade deficit, 1992-1997 (M)

These last awful -- really, really awful -- years, Judy Grubin had been noodging her husband about the Jets tickets. ''Enough is enough!'' she would complain. The couple was getting up in years. Who needed to schlep on Sundays from Jackson Heights in Queens to a football game in New Jersey? The cold burrowed into them despite the parkas, the thermal underwear and the layers of sweaters. And for what? Year after dreadful year, there was only the physical discomfort and the psychic piling on. The Jets stunk.