Comment by George W. S. Trow. We pay close attention to advertisements for aparment houses that have recently risen or are projected soon to rise. Here is found the idea in the mind of the builder (or those hired by him) as to what is in the mind of the person who must be attracted to...

Fiction Save Our Bus Herds by Cathleen Schine. Second Ave., once a busy commercial thoroughfare, has been all but destroyed recently, overrun by migrating herds of enormous, baying buses. Approximately the size of an elephant, the once solitary bus has baffled the scientific community by exhibiting herding behavior. Since the Federal Carrier Protection Agency designated buses an endangered...

Personal History II-THE FAMILY GROUP by Ved Mehta. PERSONAL HISTORY in which the writer, an Indian, who lost his sight when he was almost 4, recalls his family and his activities when he was 9 and 10 years old. His father was a public health officer and they were living in Rawalpindi. He tells about his brother Om...

The Talk of the Town Bookcase by Susan Lardner. Talk story about Janet and her bookcase and other things. She invited the writer over to see her kitchen. She had to move the bookcase out of the kitchen because a rich friend of hers said she would give her a kitchen floor for her birthday last April. A bunch...

The Talk of the Town Muscles by William McKibben. Talk story about watching a bodybuilding contest and, on another day, visiting a new kind of exercise salon where muscles are built not by exercise but by sending an electric current to various muscle groups and causing them to contract. The bodybuilding contest was the Eastern America Bodybuilding Championships and...

Fiction Firstborn by Larry Woiwode. Story about a couple named Katherine and Charles, who are expecting a baby at the beginning of the story. Charles was reading "War and Peace" to Katherine. When the story begins it is early morning and Charles recalls what they read of "War and Peace" the night before and how...

Books A Tale of Three Cities by George Steiner.

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL IO NON CREDEVO by Andy Logan. About the contest for the N.Y. State Governorship in which Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo won over the multimillionaire businessman Lewis Lehrman by just under 4 points. Lehrman announced his candidacy Jan. 11, 1982. At the time he estimated his fortune at 30 million, most of this representing stock in the...

The Talk of the Town The Lincoln by James Stevenson. Talk story about a visit to the Lincoln movie theatre in New Haven, Conn., for the final show before the theatre was torn down. Writer spent a lot of his adult life in its shabby confines. He reminisces about movie theatres of his childhood. They were massive, rococo urban wonders...

The Talk of the Town Field Trip by Wallace White. Talk story about going to Governors Island where 80 members of the New York Society of Security Analysts had a luncheon meeting at the U.S. Coast Guard Officers' Club. Their guest was Pioneer Systems, Inc. For Pioneer this interlude served as a showcase for its products. For the security analysts...

The Theatre Stony Lonesome by Edith Oliver.

Musical Events A Rake of Scholars by Andrew Porter.

Poetry Fall by Edward Hirsch. Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season Happens almost like clockwork...

Poetry Voyages by Philip Levine. Pond snipe, bleached pine, rue weed, wart...