January 30, 2000

Felicia R Lee Coping column holds that while e-mail and cell phones are able to keep people in constant contact, lack of face-to-face intimacy is result; drawing (M)

Fashion designers take inspiration from Park Avenue princesses, reviving staples of the postdebutante wardrobe, just as new generation of daughters and wifes of Manhattan's superrich emerge on social scene; photos (L)

Joseph B Rose, chairman of City Planning Commission and director of City Planning Department, proposes to simplify the rules governing the size of new buildings in New York; plan is aimed at curtailing 'tower in a park' zoning that yields buildings vastly out of scale with their neighbors, too tall and set apart on barren plazas from the street wall formed by older structures; both real estate industry and civil watchdogs welcome proposal without embracing it, partly to give themselves maneuvering room and partly because they are really not sure how it will work out in detail; drawings; photos; map (L)

Iran's 180,000 Muslim clerics are facing troubled times as people, with battered economy and feeling of being increasingly isolated from rest of world, view mullahs as source of their problems; expression of country's discontent will be seen up incoming parliamentary election on Feb 18; photo (M)

Gretchen Morgenson Market Watch column discusses possible move by Federal Reserve to raise margin requirements in response to spurt in margin borrowing; notes Chmn Alan Greenspan opposes raising requirements to tone down stock prices, but has asked securities regulators to weigh move; graph (M)