The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 1

Bingo! A Phils folk hero, the new Eagles In TV Week: New Bingo game cards. In Sports: Visits with Joe Lefebvre in the wings and Marion Campbell at his first training camp. 5 llXCj'IX Vol. 309, No. 24 1963, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.

Sunday, July 24, 1983 ONE DOLLAR The changing face of porn: High-tech, less low life Mm l(f nt I It i messages are now available to anyone with a credit card. High Society magazine, for instance, reports that its three kinky phone lines in New York receive 600,000 to 700,000 calls a day. The number of sexual devices available through the mail continues to grow, and most newsstands are offering sexually explicit material that until recently was consigned to the back room of "dirty book" stores. "You don't need to go into these areas Iporn contends Harvey Shapiro, publisher of Hooker (See PORNOGRAPHY on 12 A) By Arthur Howe Inquirer Stall Writer Betty's Body Boutique used to offer a range of personal "services" from the second floor of a run-down Times Square walk-up. Now it's a fashionable art gallery.

French croissants can now be purchased at the midtown Manhattan storefront of what was until recently Playgirls East, a notorious bar that featured nude dancing. Leachers, once a "massage parlor" on East 46th Street, is today the site of a luxury-apartment complex. Kevin H. White proclaimed two weeks ago that the city's famous "Combat Zone" was "for all intents and purposes, dead and gone." Gone, too, are the gritty 8mm "smokers'' that once adorned peep-show galleries and adult bookstores. They have been replaced by an explosion of slickly produced X-ratcd home videotapes, available at suburban shopping malls and from mailorder catalogues, and a number of adult-entertainment shows on most cable-television systems.

Moreover, heavy-breathing phone aggressive nationwide marketing tactics that make the traditional pornography districts unnecessary. The porn shops that once dominated Philadelphia's Filbert and Locust Streets have all but disappeared. Washington's famed 14th Street concentration of magazine stores, peep shows and bars with nude dancing known widely as "The Strip" is being displaced by office high-rises and chic restaurants. The "Block" in downtown Baltimore has been reduced to one-quarter of its size since the late 1960s. And in Boston, Mayor it is with us now in different forms.

Indeed, business is booming for por-nographers on the order of $5 billion a year by federal estimates but not along the "bust-out" blocks of the nation. "Porn is back in the home where it should be," says Arthur Morowitz, owner of a string of X-rated New York movie theaters and videocas-sette emporiums. It is a dramatic change, marked by a growing public acceptance of. pornography, a range of new video nology to bring it into the home and Times Square and the pornography industry it embodies is undergoing a transformation. Today, Times Square is dotted with cookie shops and camera stores, furniture outlets and high-priced restaurants.

In 1977, there were 147 peep shows, topless bars and massage parlors, according to the New York Mayor's Office of Midtown Enforcement. Today, the number of such establishments has declined by 49.7 percent to only 74. It is not that there is a declining interest in pornography; it's just that Poland to speed amnesty More than 800 due early release "The Russians treated us very well," says Barbara Jean Higgins, a student at Temple University. Siberia 7 arrive in Alaska From Inquirer Wire Services Barbara Jean Higgins, a Middle-town Township resident, and six other anti-whaling demonstrators arrested in the Soviet Union arrived in 4 Nome. Alaska, shortly after 2 a.m.

(I today after being held nearly a week Kir Cminto at a militorir Korrolro UJ flblJ HUH IU1 UHllUVIXJ, Earlier in the day, Ms. Higgins and the other activists, members of Greenpeace, an environmental group, were cheered as they boarded the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship, from a Soviet merchant vessel in the Bering Sea. i "The Russians treated us very well," said Ms. Higgins, 25, a Temple University graduate student. The mission's photographer, David Rinehart, 27, of Albany, agreed.

"We had a good talk with them. We made it clear why we were there. I think we made some friends, and that's what we went over there for." The protesters were seized Monday by the Soviets after trying to photo graph Soviet whaling operations at lirinn a villnpn on the Siberian I ill I i MiimumimMlh fcWsfeyi)ia Assucidtud Pres coastline. Greenpeace contends that the Soviets feed whale meat to (See GREENPEACE on 10-A) Released by Soviets, a raft of Greenpeace members reaches the ship Rainbow Warrior, and Tim Henry prepares to heave a line From inquirer Wire Services WARSAW The Polish government plans to accelerate the release of more than 835 political prisoners still being held for alleged activities against the state, starting tomorrow, the Justice Ministry said yesterday. The official Polish news agency PAP reported that "the first small groups" of prisoners, including some women, had already been released after the lifting of martial law.

PAP added only that "amnesty will be applied on a broader scale" starting this week. The identities of those to be released and their precise number have not been disclosed. Government officials have indicated that at least 72 people would not be freed under an amnesty decreed when martial law was abolished effective at Friday. The move ended 19 months of military rule imposed when the Communist regime cracked down on the reform movement spearheaded by the now-banned Solidarity independent trade union. But Poland's parliament, the Sejm, also enacted tough laws to ensure continued government control over the nation's political and economic life.

The amnesty decree officially went into effect yesterday. Authorities said that seven major Solidarity leaders now in jail would not be among those freed. Also excluded from the amnesty were the convicted leaders of a nationalist movement called the Confederation for an Independent Poland and the arrested leaders of the KOR dissident movement. The decree requires Justice Ministry officials to complete a study of prisoners' records within 30 days. But that did not stop relatives of those in jail from waiting hopefully outside prisons yesterday.

About 100 people were reported to have gathered at Warsaw's Rakowiecki prison to see their relatives march through the gate to freedom. No one appeared, and a prison official warned that the release would not necessarily be speedy. Sources in the Solidarity underground said Warsaw authorities had freed about 25 prisoners, but there was no confirmation of the report. Roman Catholic Church sources in Gdansk said about 30 people already had been freed on the Baltic coast, but there were no reports from Wroclaw and Krakow, the cities with the (See POLAND on 9-A) Why Channel 48 could not attract a buyer returned to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Sept. 1.

That will open the way for the FCC to award the license to some new operator, a process that could take months. Field's decision to shutter Channel 48 comes at a time when UHF stations as a group, which for years had struggled to break into the black, are making more money than ever before. And those that are put up for sale are selling at higher prices than ever before, according to trade By Andrea Knox Inquirer Stall Writer There have been times and places in which it would not have been thought unusual to shut down a television station. But 1983, when owning a TV station has been described as a "license to print money," is not one of those times. And Philadelphia, the fourth-largest TV market in the country, is not one of those places.

Yet, barring a last-minute change in plans, WKBS-TV (Channel 48) will become only the second major-mar- ket television station to go off the air in the last 10 years. On the surface at least, it does not make sense that Field Enterprises Inc. of Chicago plans to walk away from its Philadelphia station. The reason Field gives is that it has been unable to find a buyer willing to pay as much for the station as a whole as it could get by selling the station's assets separately. The company said last week that the station would go off the air some time during the night of Aug.

29, and that its operating license would be The decision comes after a year during which Field itself has completed the sale of its four other television stations, one of them at a record price for a UIIF property $140 million for a Chicago station. Those sales were part of a plan to sell all the assets of Field Enterprises, whose holdings include the Chicago Sun-Times and various cable-television properties, because of disagreements between its two major stockholders, half brothers Marshall Sth and Frederick W. Field. Channel 48 was on the block along with the rest of the stations. So the questions that both Philadclphians and the broadcasting community are asking arc: What went wrong in Philadelphia? Why couldn't Field find a buyer for Channel 48? "I just can't figure it out," said securities analyst John Reidy of Drexel, Burnham, Lambert Inc.

"Typically, stations are sold for many times the value of the property. So presumably nobody was willing to pay much for the license." Field Enterprises is not talking. (See WKBS on 13-A) Opponents form front in Lebanon Pinching Philadelphia This city, like most cities, is squeezed. Expenses are up And city services fall. Here, in a three-part series, the and revenue is down.

Each tax hike causes more pinch on Philadelphia is gauged. The first stop is in people and businesses to leave. So budget-cutters chop, the office of the inspectors who protect shoppers. itHERETE City work force in general fund budget (does not include federally funded jobs) HAVE BEEM LWNGHEREim zmoms Fiscal 1975 Fiscal 1984 City-wide 29.455 26,651 Police Dept. 8,287 7,100 Fe 3,221 2,722 Health 3,733 Streets 3,726 3,581 Licenses 570 392 Inspection 1 1075 911 LIFE ON THE BILLBOARD began as a stunt but became something much more.

The Inquirer Magazine. Weather Index CHANCE OF RAIN, clearing in the afternoon. High in 80s; low near 65. Full weather report, Page 13-D. SECTIONS FEATURES By Jane Eisner inifuirer Stall Writer We're talking pennies here.

Pennies, nickels and dimes. Carol Killin, a code-enforcement officer for the city's Bureau of Weights and Measures, and Paul Davis, a field supervisor, were dealing with such small change one recent morning. They appeared, unannounced, at a Center Pity supermarket and filled up a shopping cart with 10 packages each of meat, cheese and fish, chosen because each item had been weighed and wrapped in the store. Then they set up a scale on a makeshift table in a busy back room and carefully weighed each item. The 10 packages of veal tenders, selling at $7.59 a pound, checked out perfectly.

So did the yellow plastic containers filled with grated Romano cheese, selling for $4.29 a pound. But the fillet of monkfish was a bit short. Not much a half-ounce here, an ounce there. At $2.99 a pound, though, the fractions add up. When it turned out that nine out of 10 packages of monkfish were priced for more than they were worth one by as much as 19 cents Killin and Davis sent them all back to be repackaged and issued a violation.

"You have to get what you're paying for," just isn't enough money to hire more workers and compared with life-or-death operations such as the Police' and Fire Departments, the Bureau of Weights and Measures is likely to be viewed as somewhat dispensable. Those who save consumers a nickel or a dime a day, naturally, think differently. Davis summed it up simply: "The more inspectors you have, the more protection you are getting." The nickel and dime reductions in service in the Bureau of Weights and Measures are mirrored in hundreds of different departments throughout city government. The actual tax dollars spent to run city government are inching up, from $1.3 billion last year to $1.4 billion this year. But the increases cannot keep pace with inflation and labor costs, and that leaves less money for services and staff.

Indeed, the number of employees on the city's general fund payroll has dropped from 29,455 in 1975 to 26,651 last month. In City, Hall offices and out on the streets, in firehouses and recreation centers, in parks and police stations, the cry is the same: There is less money to go around. The federal and state governments, which in 1975 con-(See CUTBACKS on 14-A) From Inquirer Wire Services BEIRUT, Lebanon Three of Lebanon's top opposition leaders joined yesterday in a National Salvation Front to challenge President Amin Gemayel's government and scuttle a U.S.-sponsored troop-withdrawal agreement between Lebanon and Israel. After a two-hour meeting in the north Lebanon mountain resort of. Ehden, former Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh, a Maronite Christian, ex-Prime Minister Rashid Kar-ami, a Sunni Muslim, and Walid Jumblatt, leader of the country's Druse Muslims, announced that they would run the front as members of a Presidency Council.

In a separate news conference, Jumblatt also took "full responsibility" for the shelling of Beirut's international -airport Friday and the artillery bombardment of Christian areas of Beirut and an army training camp. The attacks killed 23 people and wounded 65 others, including three U.S. servicemen. Jumblatt said that the attacks were a message to Gemayel and the Christian Phalange Party, which was founded by Gemayel's family and controls the country's major Christian militia. "We have to make them Ithe Pha- (See LEBANON on 16-A) (incl.

2,500 Philadelphia General Hospital employees) 0ncl. 7 12 Philadelphia Nursing Home employees) M(incl. full- and part-time employees) News Action Line ReviewOpinion Bridge Business Crossword Sports Editorials S-F 12-P 1S-P. 2F Family Fashion Horoscope Davis said as he piled the fish back into the cart. A 17-year veteran of the bureau, Davis used to be one of 65 inspectors working daily, making sure a pound of meat was really a pound, a gallon of gasoline was really a gallon, a produce scale was on the mark.

But budget cuts have forced the bureau to reduce its staff, so that now there are only 34 field inspectors. Administrators say there Entertainment Ann Landers 2-F Food Travel Real Estate BooksLeisure Obituaries 11-D Puzzles 13-D CLASSIFIED Index 1M Autos 1-G Help Wanted 1-M Schools 5-C Inquirer magazine TV Week Comic Section.