March 26, 2001

New York City events celebrating National Poetry Month noted; Nobel Museum in Stockholm will begin its first major international exhibition on April 1 commemorating 100th anniversary of Nobel Prize; Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1980, two-volume work published by Library of America, will be celebrated in New York, Chicago, New Orleans and Los Angeles to commemorate what would have been Williams's 90th birthday on March 26; actresses Cherry Jones and Laila Robins will join co-editors of volumes, Mel Gussow of New York Times and Kenneth Holdritch of Library of America for dramatic readings at Barnes & Noble store near Lincoln Center; New York premiere of first symphony in nearly 20 years by composer Charles Wuorinen draws attention to concert by London Sinfonietta, led by Oliver Knussen at Carnegie Hall; photos (M)

Gladiator wins five Oscars: best picture, best actor (Russell Crowe) and awards for special effects, sound and costume design; Steven Soderbergh is named best director (Traffic); other major awards go to Julia Roberts for best actress (Erin Brockovich), Marcia Gay Harden for best supporting actress (Pollock), Benicio Del Toro for best supporting actor (Traffic), Cameron Crowe for best original screenplay (Almost Famous) and Stephen Gaghan for best adapted screenplay (Traffic); Ang Lee's film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon wins four awards: best foreign language film as well as for Peter Pau's cinematography, Tan Dun's musical score and Tim Yip's art direction; honorary Oscars are given to Jack Cardiff and Ernest Lehman; Dino De Laurentiis is awarded Irving G Thalberg Award for lifetime achievement; list of winners; photos (M)

Performance of New York City Police Comr Bernard B Kerik after first seven months in office appraised; he has burnished image as intense, hands-on manager; decision-making style is described by some as impetuous, but by others as decisive; even those who regard his new approach as incremental or ordinary see little evidence of self-doubt; under his tenure as city's 40th police commissioner, many of senior staff members have departed abruptly, either for private jobs or for less visible posts in department; Kerik's decisiveness attributed to realization that he has little time to reach goals of continued crime reduction, improved community relations and of resurrecting morale since he may lose job when new mayor is elected in eight months; photo (M)

Regulators begin sweeping examination of quality of service provided by Verizon New York, and scrutiny could determine future rates and quality of service for customers and extent to which other phone companies can compete in New York; have said that company's performance in repairing, installing and providing other services to its regular phone line customers declined in 2000 after several years of improvements and that company has been seriously deficient in meeting accelerating demand for special high-speed Internet connections (M)

Isabel Miranda, New Jersey Acting Gov Donald T DiFrancesco's nominee for state treasurer, was reportedly fired from high-level job at Citibank after internal auditors confronted her with evidence indicating she used her expense account to pay for thousands of dollars in personal travel while having extramarital affair with co-worker; was director of trusts and estates at Citibank's private banking unit; was reportedly fired in 1996 after auditors found evidence that she and co-worker Donald R Browne, executive at bank's San Francisco office, charged bank for frequent cross-country trips to visit with each other and for trips together elsewhere; Browne was reportedly fired at same time; affair reportedly began in 1993, subsequently leading to marriage in June 1995 after divorces were finalized weeks earlier; court documents suggest DiFrancesco learned of firing, if not reasons for it, within weeks of her dismissal; Miranda denies she was fired from bank; says she left voluntarily because of dispute with boss; photo (M)