Daily News from New York, New York • 97

1 -rfHWIftsv 1 1 I f'. DAIIV News Bureau (718) 875-4455 Fax (718) 875-7795 Home Delivery 1-800-692-NEWS I fiw Eye teen in miff attach The Brooklyn Union Gas Co. was incorporated on Sept. 9, 1895, as a consolidation of seven Brooklyn gas companies that served Brooklyn and parts of Queens. The new company was initially associated with John D.

Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. As the gas company continued to grow, service spread to include Staten Island, and Brooklyn Union Gas became the fifth-largest gas distributor in America, serving more than 4 million customers. In the past 20 years, Brooklyn Union began to expand, forming subsidiaries to explore for and produce natural gas and to enter other energy-related businesses. KeySpan, the new parent company, was one of these creations. Various components of KeySpan sell natural gas, provide energy management for commercial buildings and even operate a joint venture with California-based Metricom Co.

to provide wireless Internet service in New York, Chicago and Boston. KeySpan is also awaiting final approval of a merger with the Long Island Lighting which is expected next year. Bill Farrell But KeySpan officials expect all that to change in the next few years. Deregulation is now on the horizon for electricity, and with rapid developments in wireless communication, and other technological advances, Key-Span and Brooklyn Union expect to develop and provide an array of additional services for commercial and residential customers. The company expects to be offering telecommunications services, electricity, wireless Internet access and medical alert and home security services, Mahoney said.

He declined to speculate on an exact timetable for introduction of the new services. "Right now, with wireless communication, we can provide real-time information about energy needs and customer uses," said Mahoney. "Using this technology, we'll be able to offer low-cost wireless Internet access as well as medical alert and home security services." According to Mahoney, customers will also be able to monitor the efficiency of their burn-ers and other appliances. "With a tiny box attached to the equipment in your home, you'll know if there is a problem before it happens," he said. iary.

It will continue to sell and distribute gas under that name. Stockholders will get one share of KeySpan for each Brooklyn Union share they own. The creation of KeySpan was ignited by the deregulation of the natural gas industry in May 1996, which dramatically changed its business climate by allowing customers to shop around for natural gas from any of more than two dozen approved vendors. Brooklyn Union, with its underground pipe system, continues to hold a monopoly on delivery of gas to most of its customers. KeySpan officials said commercial customers have been able to shave up to 10 of their costs on gas, while homeowners have been able to cut costs between 6 and 8.

"Gas can be purchased cheaper because there are lower, taxes for the customer," said KeySpan spokesman Robert Mahoney. "Brooklyn Union always supported deregulation and never made, a nickel on the commodity." Aside from the ability to shop around, Brooklyn Union's 4 million customers in the three boroughs hardly noticed the changes that came with gas deregulation. By BILL FARRELL Daily News Staff Writer The company that provides natural gas for heating and cooking to Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island got a new name yesterday, but the biggest changes are still to come, officials said. More than 100 years after the company was formed in Brooklyn to provide gas for street lamps, Brooklyn Union formed KeySpan Energy Corp. a holding company that will take the gas company well beyond its current business.

"It's something that will make us stronger and put us in a position to offer additional services," said Robert Catell, chairman, president and chief executive officer of KeySpan and Brooklyn Union. "We've been Brooklyn Union for 102 years, now we're ushering in a new era of services, services for the new millennium, if you will," said Catell. At the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, Brooklyn Union (ticker symbol BU) ceased to exist as a publicly traded company and was replaced by KeySpan Energy Corp. (symbol KSE). Brooklyn Union will remain KeySpan's principal subsid ILaondlinniairCi IMeD is a sMemili: off history SUNSET PARK A grand jury is hearing evidence against a 14-year-old Sunset Park youth charged with hacking a man with a machete, sources said yesterday.

Shaun Castro is accused of jabbing the oversize knife into the head of Ai Ming Chen, 32, on Aug. 8 as he walked down 46th St. in Sunset Park. The assault sparked outrage among the neighborhood's Asian residents, who demanded police provide more protection against bias attacks. Police said they had not determined whether the attack was a bias crime.

Castro faces 12 to 25 years in jail on the most serious preliminary charge against him attempted murder. He also was charged with assault and possession of a weapon. Three other men also are believed to have participated in the attack, but only two have been arrested. Downtown Democrats angry at Rep. Edolphus Towns' endorsement of Mayor Giuliani's reelection plan to protest outside his office at 16 Court St.

in downtown Brooklyn at noon today. Attorney Jack Carroll, a member of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, called Towns' shift from backing Rev. AI Sharp-ton in the Democratic primary to Republican Giuliani "ideological schizophrenia." Crown Heights Marilyn Saviola has received the Inspiration Award from Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Crown Heights for her work advocating for the rights of the disabled. Saviola, who was struck with polio as a child, has been executive director of the Center for Independence for the Disabled since 1983. She also chairs the Americans with Disabilities Act Committee of the New York Medicaid Managed Care Task Force and is on the board of directors of the Association of Independent Living Centers in New York.

By TARA GEORGE -A Residents in the area who have trained a wary eye on the hotel and its variety of inhabitants over the years seem to have few objections to the new occupants. "Our first hope was that it would be market-rate housing," said Judy Stanton of the Brooklyn Heights Association. "But is graduate student housing bad? I don't think so." And the students themselves report general satisfaction with their digs. "The rooms are really nice and it's much cheaper than an apartment," said Melanie Gorombol, 18, a theater major from Hunter College, who pays $500 a month for a suite she shares with two other students. Nathanial Feeney, 19, who attends the School of Film and Television on W.

19th SL in Manhattan, said "Pulp Fiction" and Marilyn Monroe posters were enough to enliven his 125-square-foot room. "I was scared to death to come to Brooklyn, I'm from Ohio," he said. "But I really like it now." The students range from freshmen to mature grads, and represent about 15 colleges in the area, including New York University, Pace University, the Fashion Institute of Technology and Hunter College. Students rent the rooms from Educational Housing Services, which leases two buildings from the owners, Hotel St. George Associates.

Daily News Staff Writer It has entertained celebrities, housed AIDS patients and been ravaged by fire. Now the indomitable Hotel SL George has entered a new phase in its tumultuous 112-year history: student dormitory. About 620 students from colleges around the city now inhabit part of the landmarked Brooklyn Heights complex, which occupies a block bounded by Henry, Clark, Hicks and Pineapple Sts. In its early days, the hotel was the city's biggest and finest The likes of Spencer Tracy dwelled there in more recent decades, but the place saw a period of decline starting in the 1960s, and had become a welfare hotel. Now, its rooms have been renovated and fitted with cable TV and telephones.

Most of the welfare families and AIDS patients have left, leaving only about 30 single-room-occupancy residents most of them people to co-exist with the students. The first young tenants arrived in August 1996 about a year after a 16-alarm fire gutted a vacant part of the eight-building complex. And the newest intake of 96 freshmen from Marymount Manhattan College started moving in over the weekend, after the Manhattan dormitory where they were supposed to reside proved too Vt ST. GEORGE is home to Alexandras Kotsiras. Mvg s-i -e 1 i.