Daily News from New York, New York • 173

GENERAL ELECTRIC UNITED TECHNOLOGIES MICROSOFT MERCK CIRCUT CITY COMING TOMORROW llot Copy HONEYWELL 30 Paul D. Colford has the latest on books, '1 magazines and other media $3 $65 $3.31 $65.19 $4.44 $82 raw Kl a career of grand design $7.56 $13.88 JAMES KBVOM GAILY NEWS B- i i 1 1 1 fHI 0 are latest in As chief of design at influential architecture firm Skidmore, Owings Merrill, he has an army of 310 architects at his disposal. Others in his firm contribute ideas vital to the look of a finished building. During the late 1980s, for example, a young designer named Audrey Matlock created the original concept for 1540 Broadway now the Bertelsmann Building a shiny, futuristic tower with a distinctive spike rising from the top. "It's easy shorthand to attribute the work to one person, but this is a team effort," Childs said.

A native of Bedford Village in Westchester, Childs is a tall man with thinning white hair, wire-rimmed glasses and boyish features. He has the breezy manner of an aristocrat. Martin Filler, an architecture writer for The New Republic, attributes Childs' success to diplomatic skills as much as any creative ability. "He's certainly one of the most astute political players in the current architectural establishment," Filler said. After graduate school at Yale, Childs moved to Washington in the late '60s, where he honed a talent for schmoozing that would help him all his life.

Through mentor Nathaniel Owings, he became involved in the redesign of Pennsylvania and other high-profile projects followed. On some efforts, he worked with young White House aide Daniel Moynihan. Two decades the careers of Moynihan and Childs intersected again. Contemplating the end of his long political career, Moynihan was pushing one last master project: once again giving New York a grand Penn Sta 12) REAL David Childs stands at Columbus Circle, where he's designing twin towers. Below, facade of old Penn Station fronts construction of Madison Square Garden in '60s.

$3.13 $52.50 And Worldwide Plaza, while boosting the resurgence of what was once known as Hell's Kitchen, has taken some knocks. "It doesn't work because the building is so bulky," said Dolkart, the Columbia professor. "And the brick just looks' really chintzy." In Filler's view, "It's one of the worst skyscrapers of the late '80s and early '90s." Childs responded: "It's a very powerful piece at an important location. It has a handsome presence." His years have helped him understand that putting up buildings in a town like New York means balancing the interests of developers, community groups, politicians and architects. He wants to see his projects get built rather than die on the drawing board.

"All architecture is compromise," he said. "They will sell the games as fast as they can make them," said John Davison, editor of Electronic Game Monthly magazine. Meanwhile, Sony said it has encountered a parts shortage, reducing the number of systems it can deliver on launch date to 500,000 from 1 million. "Sony is guilty of overhyping and underdelivering, a classic problem in the gaming industry," McNealy said. Other analysts put a slightly different spin on the shortage, saying that because Sony is manufacturing its own parts, it may have difficulty meeting the demand.

"There's a $10.88 $47 L2) tion. He hoped to redeem the 1963 destruction of the original Penn Station, where Madison Square Garden now stands. That demolition sparked a movement to save historic buildings across the city and prompted the passage of the landmarks preservation law. Moynihan didn't want simply to recreate the architectural glory of the past: He wanted a transportation hub that reflected being at the center of the nation's largest metropolis. "We're the only major city in the world that does not have a rail connection to its airports," he said.

After years of cajoling the White House, Moynihan won some early funding. In a 1998 design competition, Skidmore was selected as the lead architect. Moynihan said his old friend was picked based on his work, not on his connections. "It's a wonderful design," he said. "It opens up and uses complex curves, and there's light." To architecture buffs, there's something fitting about Childs designing the new Penn Station.

Critics have compared his and Skidmore's dominance with that of McKim, Mead White, the architects who designed the original Penn Station, the Brooklyn Museum and other Beaux-Art jewels of turn-of-the-century New York. "He's basically a traditional architect, but uses new types of techniques and materials," said Aby Rosen, head of RFR Holding, which owns Lever House, the practically rebuilt Park Ave. corporate tower that Childs also redesigned recently. While Childs has fans, he also has attracted critics. "He is quite willing to move on through a succession of architectural styles with no real conviction about any of them," said Filler, the architecture writer.

is trying to position the PlayStation 2 as more than just a game box by including a DVD drive allowing families to watch movies. "Sony wants it to be the multifunction, end-all, be-all device in the living room," McNealy said, "but I'm not sure people are looking for that, since many already have cable boxes and VCRs." Regardless, the PlayStation 2 seems certain to attract the large action game-loving crowd with a lineup that includes 26 games at launch, another 26 by the holidays and many more next year. 9 1 no no over YUDDmrsday's noDHveiDDinig off Sonny Filaystaltioira 2 BOB KOLLER DAILY NEWS United States. That number is likely to nearly double by March. Adding another 1.2 million in Europe to earlier sales in Japan, the global base could reach 10 million.

Even that number pales in comparison with the 73 million systems sold of the first PlayStation, which has been on the market for several years. "New consoles don't come out every month, but when a new one appears, there is a big leap forward in terms of processing power and graphics," said Internet retailing executive John Woodson. "I can't think of another sales event that causes so much passion." to OJ to lot of new technology in the PlayStation 2, with fancy graphics chips and two advanced processors, and Sony is manufacturing all of it," Davison said. The electronic game market is made up mostly of males from 6 years old to 50-plus and includes all demographics, Woodson said. Those who have to have a new game console as soon as it ships fall mostly in the 18-to-25 age bracket, he said.

"It's been a male-dominated segment traditionally," he said. By the end of the year, analysts said there may be 1 .3 million PlayStation 2s sold in the neighborhood store as shoppers try to get their hands on the newest edition of PlayStation. "You're going to see flashlights and tents outside the big stores on the night of the 25th," said P.J. McNealy, a consumer electronics analyst at Gartner Group. The PlayStation 2 joins a crowded market for electronic game including the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Dreamcast, with a big push ex-c pected next year by- Microsoft's X-Box and Nintendo's next-gen-1 -eration i Sony which more -j than half the video game market.