Vault.com, a career guidance Web site, holds a 'Take Your Parents to Work Day' to introduce employees' parents to the dot-com world about which most of them are totally ignorant; drawing (M)

An Office Tour for Mom and Dad

Stone Street, one of oldest roads on Manhattan Island, is resurfaced with chunky Deer Isle granite paving blocks bordered by smooth New York bluestone sidewalks; Carl Weisbrod, president of Alliance for Downtown New York, which undertook newly completed $1.8 million streetscape renovation, says repaving is intended to spur commercial investment; photos; map (L)

Commercial Real Estate; Turning an Alley Into a Jewel

Home Depot names Robert L Nardelli, president and chief executive of GE Power Systems, as president and chief executive, replacing Arthur M Blank, who will join Bernard Marcus as co-chairman; Nardelli was a prime contender to succeed John F Welch Jr as chairman of General Electric until Jeffrey R Immelt was chosen; Nardelli portrait (M)

Home Depot Names Officer From G.E. As President

Soviet Hymn Is Back, Creating Much Discord

New Jersey Devils defeat Colorado Avalanche, 6-1; photos (M)

Devils Chase Roy From Goal, and Brodeur Does the Rest

 Palestinian Economy Ruined  Two months of violence have devastated the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, according to a new report by the United Nations.   PAGE A12    Security for U.S. Ships  To thwart terror attacks, Washington wants to negotiate new security arrangements with all countries American warships visit.   PAGE A16

INSIDE

Elaborate installation work on Sol LeWitt retrospective at Whitney Museum described; photos (S)

Step by Step, Sol LeWitt's Work Climbs the Walls at the Whitney

Number of new restaurants have raised stakes on Chinese food in New York, eschewing neighborhood trifecta of fish tanks, General Tso's chicken and free delivery to create 'event cuisine,' with high-concept environments to match; Tao, Lotus, Chinoiserie and other restaurants described; photos (M)

The New Chinese: It's Hotter; In Temples of Cool, Chopsticks Gain A Cutting Edge

Republicans select Sen Trent Lott and conservative leadership team to preside over new Senate, and they quickly rebuff Democrats' demands for power sharing, including co-chairmen; even before any new members are sworn in, the two parties, for all their talk of bipartisanship, appear to be heading for confrontation; on one side are some Democrats so adamant about equal control that they refuse to concede that their own newly elected leader, Sen Tom Daschle, would have title of minority leader; on other side are Republicans determined to maintain their prerogatives; photos (M)

GORE SAYS HE'LL CONTINUE FIGHT

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lends its support to two private lawsuits charging that Lockheed Martin Corp discriminated against 11 black employees at its military aircraft plant in Marietta, Ga; plaintiffs say Lockheed allowed managers to taunt and threaten them because they are black, paid them less than it paid white employees and retaliated against those who complained; plaintiffs say discrimination is company-wide and seek to have lawsuits certified as class actions; Lockheed seeks to have suits dismissed on several grounds (M)

U.S. Joins in 2 Bias Suits Against Lockheed Martin

Footlights column; International Assn of Art Critics/USA honors Studio Museum director Lowery S Sims, as well as two Guggenheim Museum shows, Sol LeWitt show from San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Frank O'Hara exhibit at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; Baltimore Museum to show Robert Rauschenberg's 'combines'; Kirk Douglas to get lifetime achievement award at Berlin International Film Festival; art by Charlotte Salomon, who died in Auschwitz, will be shown at Jewish Museum; exhibit was assembled by Royal Academy in London; photos (S)

FOOTLIGHTS

Gretchen Morgenson column on limits on Federal Reserve's ability to engineer a soft landing and rebound for economy in light of statement from its chairman, Alan Greenspan, that he is prepared to change interest rate policy from inclination to increase rates to predilection to cut them (M)

Whoopee, a Stock Surge! Finished? Now, a Reality Check.

Wu Jichuan, top communications minister in China, comes to Hong Kong for conference organized by International Telecommunication Union and struggles to calm tempest roused by reports that government has approved proposal to replace system under which both cellular telephone caller and recipient pay for call to one that would require caller to pay for it; shares of China's publicly listed telephone companies, China Mobile and China Unicom, sank after those reports because they raised fears that companies would lose billions of dollars in revenue; photo (M)

Last Word in China's Phone Industry

Irish government plans to sell two of its state-owned banks for combined sum of more than $600 million; Irish Life and Permanent PLC agrees to purchase TSB Bank for 430 million euros ($379 million); Bank of Scotland will acquire government's 85.1 percent stake in ICC Bank PLC, valuing ICC at 275 million Irish pounds ($308 million) (M)

Ireland Selling Two Banks For More Than $600 Million

Senior executives throughout corporate America are being forced to give up their big corner offices for cubicles that lower-level managers have long grown used to; trend is driven by cost, especially renovation expenses; workplace democracy still remains a rarity, and executives who have acquiesced to casual dress in workplace can lash out when such a valued perk as a big office is threatened; photo (M)

MANAGEMENT: A Status Symbol Under Siege; Big Plush Offices Make Way for More Humble Space

Interview with Andre Soltner, renowned chef who left his four-star restaurant, Lutece, four six years ago and has traveled and taught cooking around the world, most recently at French Culinary Institute; photos; receipe (M)

A Chef in Full: Soltner Beyond the Kitchen

Florence Fabricant report on bold, complex cooking of Sichuan Province, now recreated in several of New York's Chinese restaurants; reviews places like Wu Liang Ye and Grand Sichuan; photos; recipes (M)

The New Chinese: It's Hotter; Sichuan Cooks Relight The Fire

Article on $145-million transformation of British Museum's long-hidden Great Court into stunning new enclosed public space that surrounds famous Reading Room cherished by generations of writers and eccentrics; photos; Norman Foster's design was made possible by lottery funds and transfer of British Library to new building near St Pancras Station; museum's original 1823 design by Robert Smirke included neo-Classical courtyard, but it was obscured after domed Reading Room was added in 1857; billowing transparent roof has now turned area into interior space that will remain open to public even after museum closes; tranformation of beloved stodgy landmark described (M)

Stodgy Never Looked So Chic; The British Museum Hits the Lottery and Buys New Duds

Lawsuit filed by supporter of Vice Pres Al Gore in Seminole County, Fla, along with similar one from Martin County, argues that it is illegal to change county's ballot applications after they had been rejected for insufficient data, and seeks discarding of all 15,215 absentee ballots cast there; at issue is actions of Michael A Leach, Republican Party regional director, who added missing identification numbers to 2,000 absentee-ballot applications from Republican voters, hoping to help Gov George W Bush in very close election; ballots in question favored Bush by 2 to 1; successful outcome for suit would mean net loss of 4,800 votes for him, enough to overturn results of election; photos (M)

DEMOCRATS LOOK TO ANOTHER TRIAL

Cornelius Cooper, a black lineman with Georgia Power Co, files race-discrimination lawsuit against company, charging that it added new prerequisites to promotion as soon as he fulfilled earlier ones, while allowing white workers who had less seniority to advance; this theme, 'raising the bar,' is becoming common to current discrimination lawsuits by blacks and other minorities; photo (M)

When Your Boss Keeps Raising the Bar

Environmental Protection Agency, in what would be most ambitious river cleanup in nation's history, plans to order General Electric Co to spend $490 million to dredge toxic PCB's embedded in Hudson River mud; plan is major defeat for GE, which owned factories north of Albany that legally dumped chemicals in river over 30-year period; EPA Admr Carol M Browner notes plan follows most intensive EPA review ever; GE says it will fight move, holding it would disperse into river toxins safely buried in mud; map; photos (M)

G.E. FACING ORDER TO REMOVE POISONS FROM THE HUDSON

Russia's struggling banking sector gets vote of confidence from US Export-Import Bank, which introduces program of partnerships with 15 Russian banks; Russia's weak and largely unregulated banking sector still awaits promised revamping after financial collapse of 1998 (S)

RUSSIAN BANKING PARTNERSHIPS

German tour operator C & N Touristic is expected to announce that it has acquired control of Thomas Cook Group by buying 22 percent stake from Carlson Companies for 550 million pounds ($799.7 million) in cash (S)

C & N TO ACQUIRE CONTROL OF THOMAS COOK

 Xerox Plans to Spin Off Electronic Paper Company  Xerox, its finances in chaos and its stock in free fall, plans to spin off a small company that demonstrates its technological prowess, at least, remains intact.    The company, Gyricon Media, will make a flexible, paper-thin material that can be used to display computer-generated text. Xerox expects one of Gyricon's first applications will help create changeable signs for retail stores. Some investors hail Gyricon's birth as a welcome respite from the stream of bad news that has been flowing from Xerox. [Page C2.]

BUSINESS DIGEST

Hillary Rodham Clinton joins 11 other newly elected members of Senate for day of freshman orientation, getting glimpse of what her working life will be like when she assumes her new job next year; it is first time in nation's history that a first lady goes off to work across town as member of Congress; photo of retiring Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan (M)

Beanie in Place, Mrs. Clinton Starts Freshman Orientation

Werner Klemperer was an American actor. He was best known for playing Colonel Wilhelm Klink on the CBS television sitcom Hogan's Heroes, for which he twice won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards in 1968 and 1969.

Werner Klemperer, German-American actor (born 1920)

Werner_Klemperer

Aziz Mian Qawwal was a Pakistani traditional qawwal famous for singing ghazals in his own style of qawwali and is considered one of the greatest qawwals in South Asia. He holds the record for singing the longest commercially released qawwali, Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga, which runs slightly over 115 minutes. Aziz is known by sobriquets :"Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", "Fauji Qawwal"(Military Singer), since his early performances were often in army barracks, and "the Nietzschean Qawwal".

December 6, 2000

Headlines from December 6, 2000

An Office Tour for Mom and Dad

Commercial Real Estate; Turning an Alley Into a Jewel

Home Depot Names Officer From G.E. As President

Soviet Hymn Is Back, Creating Much Discord

Devils Chase Roy From Goal, and Brodeur Does the Rest

Billboard 200

Black & Blue

1

Now 5

Greatest Hits

The W

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for December 6, 2000