Daily News from New York, New York • 20

20 DAILY NEWS Friday, Aprif 6, 1990 1 gggg 1 et73 a nn: LkjS) foj 15 Is hmljfm lam I tmj n-- k-J ImJ VaJ 120,000 square feet is not the largest in the world. An expansion of the Riviera, in Las Vegas, completed MarcH 12, makes it the largest in the world at 125,000 square feet. There are 12 casino hotels in Vegas larger than the Taj. II The much ballyhood Taj convention space, 175,000 square feet, runs second to the 220,000 square feet the Las Vegas Hilton has. "Actually," says Riviera President Mark Sterbens, "the Taj Mahal would be just another small hotel." Trump execs hotly dispute this and accuse Sterbens of fudging his numbers.

"We count actual casino space. He, is counting all the slot machines they have in the hall out there. We are absolutely the biggest, not them," said Walter Haybert, Taj president. By BRUCE CHADWICK Daily Mows Staff Writer Amid all the hoopla about the Taj Mahal, a few facts seem to have been lost in the cracks of the Atlantic City Boardwalk as Donald Trump cut the ribbon to formally open his new casino, which made its daily $1 million on opening day. Consider: Although Trump is planning on doing what he says is a record $31 million or better gross this month, he still will be only No.

2 Steve Wynn's Mirage in Las Vegas did $40 million in its first month, December, and has, industry sources say, kept up a $35 million-a-month pace ever-since. II The Taj Mahal is not the biggest hotel in Atlantic City. Bally's Park Place is. Rally's has 1,300 rooms to 1,250 for the Taj. II The Taj casino with its HINCKLEY FROM PAGE FIVE Cop arrested An off-duty cop was arrested and suspended yesterday after holding a prostitute hostage when 'she tried to flee after he refused to pay her fee, according to a police spokesman.

Officer John A. Zervos, 27, was arrested just before dawn after the hostage hooker caught the attention of a passing patrol car near Bruckner Blvd. and Whittier St in the Bronx. 500G gem heist A man masquerading as a messenger robbed the midtown Seaman Schepps Jewelry Store on Park Ave. of $500,000 in gems yesterday afternoon.

The man fled in a blue car, cOps said. train injury A 21-year-old man ridiqg atop the last car of a train with a pal.was knocked off by a pole or crossbeam and seriously injured as the train crossed the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn early yesterday evening. It was not clear what happened to his friend, transit police said. Columbia sit-in At least 25 Columbia University Law School students staged a peace- ful overnight sit-in at the dean's office yesterday after boycotting classes to protest the lack of minority and women faculty members. The protest, at the law school on 116th St, was part of a nationwide effort to call attention to the absence of tenurett and non-tenured minority law professors.

Claire Serant Tiananmen ploy BEIJING Authorities staged all-day rallies in Tiananmen Square yesterday, China's annual day for mourning the dead, preventing unofficial visits to the symbolic center of last year's crushed democracy movement Jet siege ends PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti A soldier who held an empty commercial jet for three days, threatening to blow it up unless he was flown to the United States, jumped out of the plane early yesterday and escaped, a radio station reported. There was speculation the army allowed Pvt Gerald Pierre, 20, to escape as a way to resolve peacefully the three-day siege, which had closed the international airport. called Trump Pyramid. Remember Ivana? Remember Maria? The guy clearly just bores easily, which is a problem in his financial stratum. Trump's battle is not unlike, say, Imelda Marcos' desperate struggle to buy new shoes faster than she got tired of the last pair.

We all know what purgatory that led her into. If there were any doubt this is Trump's burden, it is erased by a stroll through the Taj Mahal. You know how you walk through a modest restaurant that someone saved for years to open, and you instantly know that this is the owner's life? The plants are hung just so. There's always some homemade specialty on the menu. The New Delhi Deli, for instance, offers Yankee pot roast.

The Bombay Cafe features hamburgers and hoa-gies. Collectively, they flank the Rock Rolls Cafe, in which patrons sit under a life-sized statue of Elvis. If there's any vision behind all this, it's green and has dead Presidents on it Consider it no accident that the showcase of the Taj Mahal hotel, a penthouse, is the Alexander the Great suite. Alex, it might be remembered, sat down one night when he was about 30 and wept because he had conquered the whole world and he was afraid that now he'd be bored. That isn't Donald Trump's problem, yet.

He still has a few frontiers left, like the West Side of Manhattan, where he wants to increase ratables with a high-rise project that would turn everything west of Central Park into a moss farm. If it isn't high enough to alter flight patterns, presumably, it won't be enough for Donald. Let us assume, too, that he will be getting back to this as soon as he's bored with the Taj. Since this is Friday, we should probably start looking for him around the middle of next week. And someday the Taj, like Ivana, will be left with the memories.

At least he gives a great batch of fireworks on opening night. Jliiiliil liiil good faith that they really do mean to seriously address the problem. We take them at their word and we believe they will do the job correctly this time." States where lawmakers have promised not to pursue or revive mandatory labeling bills include Arizona, Iowa, Maryland, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, Alaska, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island. A TALL ORDER! One of the many showbiz folk who were on hand at yesterday's opening of the Taj Mahal gives woman good-luck handshake before she ventured inside to do battle with Lady Luck. ROBERT ROSAMIUO DAILY NEWS laMoi dteadl by disc Foasadfetrs By JILL LAWRENCE The Associated Press WASHINGTON Two national groups pressing for voluntary warning labels on records urged state legislators yesterday to drop crusades for mandatory labels in light of an industry effort to alert consumers to explicit lyrics.

Tipper Gore, president of the Parents' Music Resource Center, said lawmakers in 13 states had promised to abandon their efforts to require labels on music with graphic lyrics about sex and violence. Bills are pending in six states, she said. The center "has never believed that legislation is the answer," Gore said. "Today, we are asking state lawmakers to give the voluntary system a chance to work." Six major record companies said last week they plan to create a uniform voluntary labeling system to identify explicit recordings. The companies are Warner, MCA, CBS, Capitol-EMI, RCA and Polygram.

Gore and Ann Lynch, president of the National PTA, said that would strengthen a labeling agreement their groups had reached with the industry in 1985. Asked if a standard alone would result in a wider use of the labels, she replied: "We take the industry on From Daily News bureau and wire service reports.