Daily News from New York, New York • 495

HUGHS I. 13 6i '--sT By OWEN FITZGERALD Polytechnic Institute of New York announced yesterday it has raised $750,000 in private and government funds to begin converting the old City of Brooklyn fire headquarters on Jay St into a fire research center. Initial repair work is expected to start in coming weeks to replace the roof and provide basic utilities as a start In the general rehabilitation of the 88-year-old fire facility into a modern fire research and teaching center, said a Poly spokesman. Tentative completion date is set for 1981. The historic five-story red brick Romanesque style building was erected In 1892 and served the former City and then Borough of Brooklyn as its fire headquarters.

Its tower then the tallest structure here enabled fire watchers to detect blazes and dispatch horse-drawn fire wagons from the edifice on Jay St between Myrtle Ave. and Wil-loughby St Privat donation It was shuttered by the city's Fire Department in 1972 and turned over to Poly on a long-term lease for development as a fire research center. The $750,000 development fund came from $450,000 in Community Development funds from the U. S. De- Eartment of Housing and Urban evelopment, $245,000 from the private Fleischmann Foundation, $50,000 from the New York State Department of Parks and Recreation and the remainder In private donations.

According to Paul R. DeCicco, director of Poly's Center for Urban and Environmental Studies "the first floor which housed the old fire wagons will become a fire-training theater. This is a concept which I believe will be unique in the area ef fire education." Wind tunnel too "It will have a multi-screen set up and computer system. The idea will be to simulate fires and firefighting situations using several screens and computer output displays. The fire officer using the theater will then take actions and make decisions based on what he sees before him," said the professor.

DeCicco said there will be a demonstration laboratory to project 'street plans for response problems knd a low-speed wind tunnel for studying fire phenomena. Other equipment will include an electronic information board with A Bay Ridge volunteer ambulance corps has won fourth prize in the state-run Losing Lottery Ticket contest, transforming 54,580 worthless scraps of paper into a cash price of $15,000. The tickets, weighing more than 100 pounds, were collected by BRAVO (Bay Ridge Ambulance Volunteer Organization), one of the state's largest volunteer ambulance corps. "We are delighted," said Myles Davis, a Franciscan brother who is the president of the Bay Ridge group. "We're not eligible for any city, state, or federal funds, so the money is quite obviously welcome." Davis got the good news yesterday, when an official of the New York State Lottery Commission telephoned him.

Today he goes to lottery headquarters in Manhattan to pick up the $15,000 check. Tholrofforts dotallod "We knew we were in the top five when we went to the lottery offices Jan. 11 to fill out a form detailing how many tickets we'd collected," Davis said. That was the day the contest ended. Davis credited the placement of "losing ticket buckets" in lottery agents stores throughout Bay Ridge and Dyck-er Heights and a Dec.

26 story in the Daily News detailing their efforts. "We serve roughly 120,000 people in the area, and I think they all pitched in to help," said Davis, a former teacher at Bishop Ford High School. Davis said the money would be used to help support the three-vehicle fleet, which averages 600 calls a month and is active 24 hours a day. Offor more $rvfce? "We'd like to expand," said Davis of the five-year-old agency. "In the back of our mind we're contemplating offering paramedic services, but that is very expensive." BRAVO, quartered at a one-time dry-cleaning store and machine shop at 8507 Seventh could also use the tax-free money to rent more garage space.

The top prize state-wide was $100,000. Work wIN begin in next few weeks to convert old City of Brooklyn Fire Headquarters at 367 Jay St Into fire research center. Fire Administration offering advanced technology in fires and fire fighting," he said. "I believe that we have a commitment to the people of New York to do as much as possible in fire education and prevention. We owe it to our neighbors to do what we can to reduce the number of fire fatalities and to preserve the city's building stock," he said.

colored lights designating different kinds of fire emergencies. The center will also include laboratories for fire investigation, classrooms and training areas for Fire Department fire marshals as well as a fire reference library, he said. "We will be working in cooperation, with city's Fire Department and the U.S. College slates varied courses Mega urges an override oS death penalty veto sftp: Ink' I1 The Olympic games, religions of the East, Harlem, movies about madness, Italian-American novels, and modern American political leadership will be among the new courses slated for the spring semester at Brooklyn College. The experimental, special-topic courses are part of an effort at the school to present "new, innovative or particularly topical subjects that enhance the college's regular according to a spokesman for the school.

A number of courses will examine New York City, with one class devoted to "The History of Brooklyn: Family, Community. Work Place." "A Social History of New York City" will feature a special emphasis on immigration, ethnicity, neighborhood and suburban evolution, and architecture. The course will inelude slide shows, field trips, and walking tours Thomas Hanrahan By MARK UCBCRMAN State Sen. Chrjs Mega (R-C-Bay Ridge) called on the Legislature yesterday to override Gov. Carey's veto of legislation to reinstrate the death penalty in New York to determine whether capital punishment would be a deterrent to violent crime.

Mega said that if capital punishment turns out not to be a deterrent, "the worst that will happen is that convicted killers I emphasize the word 'convicted' here will be sent to Death Row." Carey, a staunch opponent of capital punishment, has vowed to commute death sentences if his capital punishment veto is overridden by the Legislature. Mega, in calling for the override vote, asserted that "misguided individuals, usually liberal types, have made a political issue over something that shouldn't be political at alt "All the arguing over whether thea death penalty is good or bad, right or wrong, a deterrent or not a deterrent, is just a lot of nonsensical political chatter," Mega said. "A majority of people, in poll after poll and in letters to their representatives, keep saying they want it In democracy you had better have some pretty good reasons to thwart the will of the majority. I don't see any in this case." The death penalty legislation which passed both houses of the Legislature earlier this month applies to murders committed during a robbery, rape, arson, burglary or kidnaping. Murderers of police officers or prison guards, contract killers or torture killers would be subject to death by electric chair.

Also under the legislation, convicted murderers could be sentenced to death only if a jury decrees it by a second, separate vote. Sm Chris Uqm.