October 3, 1999

Proposals by five architects who participated in a competition for plans to redevelop the derelict 12-block corridor of rail yards between Pennsylvania Station and the Hudson River will go on view Tuesday at Grand Central Terminal. The plans, renderings, models and an interactive computer program give detailed form to proposals to transform the no man's land of railway yards, tunnel entrances and highway overpasses bounded on the south by 30th Street and north by 34th Street.

EDES GILBERT saw it all. For 15 years as the headmistress of the Spence School, she saw the parents who lobbied for their 7-year-olds to be assigned to classes with children who weren't their friends but whose parents were rich and prominent -- in the hopes that the students would become friends and so would the parents. She saw the jockeying to volunteer on the ''right'' parent committees. ''Mothers would be upset because they weren't put on a committee with someone who would give them that social leg up,'' said Mrs. Gilbert, who retired in 1998 from Spence, the prestigious Upper East Side girls' school. ''Mothers would throw a hissy fit.''

Brooklyn Museum of Art opens controversial exhibition of contemporary British art to public, attracting protesters and long line of partrons; museum officials credit Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani's unrelenting campaign against museum; photos (M)

Agriculture Department inspector general, Roger C Viadero, charges many nonprofit organizations bilked Federal program to feed poor children in day care homes of millions of dollars by routinely overstating number of meals served; say groups, which recruit and supervise homes, either claimed funds for meals served to nonexistent children in fictitious homes or demanded kickbacks from legitimate day care providers; began nationwide probe after whistle-blower complained of problems at California nonprofit group; holds Federal officials have not moved fast enough to correct basic program flaws (M)

Felicia R Lee Coping column on Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood; executive director Marjorie A Moon comments on type of plays poor, black residents favor and describes upcoming season; drawing (M)