Daily News from New York, New York • 103

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 26, 1971 mi 4j Move to Legalize Hue aw 7G the City A By JOHN GEHRKE WITH OPT-TRACK letting, the lottery and leal abortions already realities, New York can be considered one of the most liberal states in the nation. The question is, what will it become if virtually all forms of gambling; prostitution and homosexuality are legalized? Such revolutionary revisions of the Iw3 governing- so called victimless crimes are already in the wind and their proponents far outnumber their foes. It is the staggering implications of such legislation that the lawmakers in Albany will have to face this winter. "Would the city, in the word3 of one opponent, former Controller Mario A. in five years if the numbers game and sports betting were legalized as was horse betting in OTB parlors.

He also asserted legalized gambling would reduce crime, improve the efficiency of the Police Department, sweep away much of the congestion in the criminal courts and relieve overcrowding in prisons. Spokesmen for the Harlem community, where numbers is a multi-million-dollar-a-year business, said they wanted numbers cleaned up and legalized but only with community control so that the funds would be returned to Harlem, earmarked for hospitals, education and economic development. Samuels and others agreed that legalization of all forms of gambling would tan), Stephen Solarz (D-Brooklyn) and Franz Leichter (D-L-Manhattan). They conducted three days of hearings recently to study all of the intricate ramifications of the legislation they plan to introduce. Most of the 35 witnesses called for the "decriminalization" of victimless crimes, much as prohibition was repealed.

Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, who was unable to testify, is on record in support of efforts to legalize gambling and to repeal laws against prostitution and homosexuality, which many law officers say are unenforceable anyway. Off -Track Betting Corp. Chief Howard Samuels said organized crime's involvement in gambling could be stopped with Procacclno, become a "mecca for crime, dissention, polarization, filth and corruption, as well as a city under siege by criminals, pimps, prostitutes and homosexuals "Would the female prostitutes now lining the streets around Times Square and the male prostitutes who sit on cars along Third Ave. near 53rd St.

grow in numbers and spread to still more sections of the city? Would the new laws result in hoards of perverts preying on youngsters? In short, would the state's cities become 20th century Sodom and Goniorrahs? No, say the assemblymen who plan to introduce the legislation by December. They are Antonio Olivieri (D-L-Manhat- The Plague of Vandalism in the By RICHARD OLIVER IN 111S MOST candid moments, August Heckschf -r. the city's affable and soft-spoken parks administrator, reluctantly admits that his agency, always at the top of the list when "it conies to budgetary cutbacks. Is fipcnlly nnd physically unable to protect New York's V.T.ono" acres of park-lands from vandals. Despite the light-ncartod connotations that might be associated -with Hecksi her's department after all, it is the I'arks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Administration the agency functions in a politically charged atmosphere.

It is politics on a community or neighborhood level. The parks budget being what it is, therefore, the agency must do what it can, when it can, with whatever means it has. Catch Heckscher at the right moment and he will also concede that, like the squeaky wheel that gets oiled, communities that scream the loudest In his announcement, the Parks' boss denounced the "vandals who desecrate Central Park and other great parks of the city." Park vandalism alone, a department spokesman said, costs the city $1.25 million annually including $85,000 for broken benches, $60,000 for vandalized playground equipment, $30,000 to fix drinking fountains. The spokesman also noted a sort of "vicious cycle" of vandalism in which facilities that are left unrepaired actually generate more a point not lost on the Friends of Central Park. For example, a broken swing in a playground will attract fewer mothers and their children, often a deterrent to vandals.

In effect, the more a park facility is used, the less it is apt to be vandalized. By this reasoning then, the destruction of the Ladies Pavilion began, not the other day when somebody sent it crashing to the ground, but when the first broken bench in the area remained unrepaired. The fact is, the Ladies Pavilion wasn't destroyed in a day or a week or even a year. Three years ago, the Friends noticed the structure was in urgent need of repair and the little group raised funds to restore it, paid for architectural plans and asked the Parks agency to begin the work. They're still waiting.

As the Friends of Central Park put it in a telegram to Mayor Lindsay: "In the long interim, the Park Department took no steps to protect the pavilion, despite repeated pleas. Vandals inevitably moved in, attracted by the wreckage cf broken benches nearby, which have been an eyesore for years." In a swift reply, Heckscher said the restoration plans had been submitted to the Board of Estimate last July. The matter was kicked over to the city's Budget Bureau for approval in August. Nevertheless, as a result of screaming, by midweek Heckscher committed his department to spend $40,000 to rebuild the pavilion. about their parks, get action.

Those that don't, don't. It's almost as simple as that priorities determined politically. Be it a broken baby swing in a Brooklyn playground or the uprooting of Riverside Park in Manhattan, action by the Parks Department often depends on the political potency of ttie community involved. The lesson, a sad ore about how badly New Yorkers need these oases of open spaces scattered across the crowded city, could be seen once again last week with the sorry story of Central Park's Ladies Pavilion, a beautiful pagoda-like structure of cast-iron columns supporting a stately roof built a century ago on the banks of Conservatory Lake off the park's West Drive at 77th St. It was destroyed last weekend.

Officially, the wreckage was blamed on vandals. But one had to ask whether "official vandalism" wasn't involved too. Indeed, this question was raised by a group known as the Friends of Central Park. The Central Park Ladies Pavilion before and after the years of neglect and vandalism that brought on its downfall. tf i i it i i i i VI -i t.

tut.