Daily News from New York, New York • 134

Immigration page 3 HABEl im Homeless man busted in sticlwps SUDD WILLIAMS DAILY NEWS 1 Metro-North ticket office at E. Tremont and Park Aves. sits behind graffiti-spattered building, which had become a site for illegal dumping, is being demolished. ftkteti tffico msai Tremont building dates from 1920s BRONX Detectives have bagged a vicious fast-food restaurant robber, police said yesterday. The suspect, a homeless man identified as Jerry McCorkle, 37, was charged in a dozen such robberies around the borough that began Oct.

10. The most recent one occurred Friday. The robber was particularly vicious during the stickups, stabbing at least four of his 12 victims as they worked cash registers in the restaurants, said Detective Donato Siciliano of the Bronx Robbery unit. McCorkle was arrested late Tuesday in a homeless shelter at 860 Garrison cops said. He was charged after a series of lineups and making written and videotaped statements.

East Harlem Opponents of a proposed $160 million retail complex for East Harlem which will bring 2,000 jobs to the economically depressed area, according to its developer went to court yesterday to block the project. A coalition of business owners and landlords whose property is slated for condemnation to make way for Home Depot and Costco filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court. The new East River Plaza development is planned for the site of an abandoned wire factory and a dozen adjacent privately owned properties. The site runs along the FDR Drive from 116th St. to 119th St.

Members of the East Harlem Business and Residence Alliance charge that the project will increase traffic and auto emissions and hurt more than 100 local small businesses, said their attorney, Jack Lester. Jesse Masyr, an attorney for the developer, Tiago Holdings, dismissed the court action, saying the suit had no merit. He said the project was approved after "unprecedented environmental review" by the city and state. Hunts Point American Airlines yesterday kicked off a program at the Hunts Point Co-op Market to help feed those in need. With its Food Savers program, the airline will donate sealed and nonperishable food from domestic flights to the Food for Survival food bank headquartered at the market.

The group will distribute it to the hungry. Inspired by American's flight attendants. Food Savers was launched at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport last spring. NEWS "Once it had become a debris collection site, it was obvious it had to go," Brucker explained. Officials from Community Board 6, which covers the Bronx's Tremont section, considered the building both a fire and health hazard.

All of its windows had been shattered. Inside were heaps of trash, including piles of illegally dumped tires that reached the ceiling. fencing. The long-abandoned "It was a busy building, open all the time," said Moses Stein, owner of Frank's Sport Shop on E. Tremont Ave.

"There used to be trains stopping here a dozen times a day." A dress shop and Western Union office shared space inside the ticket office when trolleys buzzed along E. Tremont Ave. "Boys would sit inside there waiting to deliver telegrams during World War II, with news about those killed, missing in action and wounded," said Stein. Metro-North's plans for the site are unclear. Brucker said a fenced concrete slab will remain when the demolition is completed in two weeks.

has been making county government more efficient, "we can come close" to his four-year goal. The budget features: $250,000 for a mosquito-control program. Two new positions in the district attorney's office to prosecute domestic violence. A 10-cent increase, to $1.50, in the fare on county buses. A new Department of Emergency Services, overhauling county firefighting efforts.

A substance-abuse program for prisoners. The budget is subject to changes and approval by the county legislature. NEWS Spanno Mgett eyes bounds By RALPH R. ORTEGA DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER The Bronx is saying goodbye to a piece of its railroad history. Metro-North this week is demolishing a disheveled street-level ticket office at its Tremont Station at E.

Tremont and Park Aves. The unwanted building above the railroad's Harlem Line's tracks had been abandoned for more than two decades. It contained asbestos and was constantly used for illegal dumping. Over the years, the ticket office caught fire at least once and had become a symbol of the decline of the Bronx's E. Tremont Ave.

shopping district. "Maybe this street will be cleaner now," said Olga Tobar, 42, a refrigerator store employee working along the still struggling strip. "That place was really a dangerous situation and bad for business." Metro-North spokesman Dan Brucker said the railroad was hounded for years to do something with the ticket office, originally built for the defunct New York Central Railroad sometime in the 1920s. Finally, $135,000 in Metro-North's capital improvement budget was made available for the demolition this year. With no use for the ticket office at the Tremont Station, which also suffers from low rid-ership, and safety concerns, the railroad decided that razing the building was best.

BUREAU (718) 822-1174 "We welcome the disappearance of that building," said Ivine Galarza, Board 6's district manager. "It was definitely an eyesore." Some sentimental old-timers in the neighborhood had expressed hopes for saving the ticket office. Tremont has had stations at the site since 1844. This week, however, they watched the wrecking ball strike, with lumps in their throats. said, and bonding would transfer the risk to investors.

Spano, who was elected in 1997 on a pledge to trim taxes by 15 in four years, complained that this year's cut could have been as deep as 8.6 if the state had not dropped its funding of several mandated programs. "New York State, with its biggest surplus in history, has shifted its state costs onto the backs of county taxpayers," he said. Spano imposed a spending and hiring freeze when the state budget was passed in August. Last year, under Spano's first budget, taxes were cut less than 2. But he said that because he HOME DELIVERY 1 800 692 By JIM FITZGERALD The ASSOCIATED PRESS Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano proposed a year 2000 budget yesterday that would add $46 million in spending but cut property taxes by 1.7.

The budget and probably the tax cut are dependent on a plan under which Westchester would use bonds to get early access to $100 million in promised tobacco settlement funds it would not otherwise see until 2011. Bonding makes sense because "it's my belief that that money isn't going to be there," Spano FAX (718) 822-1562.