Daily News from New York, New York • 293

ML7 Bidders Hunk 39 Whitehall St as 4-f Budding DAILY NEWS. THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 23. W4 By SYBIL BAKER going, going and it's still there. For the fourth time yesterday, the U.S.

General Services Administration offered the venerable Army Induction Center at 39 Whitehall St. for sale." And nobody bought. "We were very much surprised," said a GSA spokesman. "We are undecided now what to do next." He said that yesterday's minimum bid was lowered to $547,500 to attract buyers, when the previous bid offering on July 21 drew no purchasers at $657,000. The Whitehall St.

Army Building was the place through which generations of young men were funnelled to battlefields in Argonne and Iwo Jima and the Mekong Delta through generations of different wars. It was also a mute reminder to the bereaved that many of these men never returned. Stories Within Stories On March 27, 1886, when the building was only four stories high, the Army bought it for $250,000 from the New York Produce Exchange Co. The military added five more stories. The recruiting and induction center processed more than four million men and women until 1972 when the Pentagon ordered its files and services transferred to another government building at 203 Varick St.

As generations of soldiers shuffled through its gloomy halls, the building saw a shifting parade of values. The civilians who became doughboys there in World War I left the Whitehall St. building in the belief that they were going off to fight "the war to end all wars." Times Have Changed And along with the jokes and gripes and fears in the nearly three decades that followed, there was ft certain united vision there too that only faltered with the Korean War, to become drastically polarized with Vietnam. In the late '60s a different kind of idealism scraped against everything the red brick and granite building had stood for, a protesters picketed, held vigils, and exploded bombs at 39 Whitehall St. The building was in different ways, in different decades a monument to monumental concepts.

And so yesterday's non-sale, the fact that nodbody wants it any more, can be interpreted perhaps as a sign that time passes, things change. Planners Okay 'Hotel Adjoining landmark By JOHN TOSCANO Satisfied that the landmark status of the 100-year-old Villard Houses will be preserved, the City Planning Commission yesterday ended two years of controversy as it approved a proposal for a $65 million luxury high-rise hotel adjacent to the landmark buildings on Madison Ave. between E. 50th and E. 51st Sts.

ce commission's action was ap The administration and the Planning Commission were "standing by while our precious architectural heritage is being destroyed by the onslaught" of the real estate industry. Wit --x: News photo by Dan Farrell Orval Deputy (right) takes punch on the arm during bout yesterday with Carmelo Montegros of the Bronx. A Slug est on Sixth A ve. PALs Punch One Another proved by a 5-to-l vote, with Commissioner Alexander Cooper abstaining. The commission also "approved by an identical vote a zoning amendment designed to protect landmark buildings in the high-density commercial district bounded by 40th and 59th Sts.

from Lexington to Eighth Aves. The enclave includes the Villard Houses site. The houses and the building site are owned by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The developer, Harry Helms-ley, plans to build a 51-story, 775-room structure, to be known as the Palace Hotel, which will include two commercial floors and several floors of publicly accessible hotel-related uses. Assure Accessibility Local community opposition to the plan was centered on public accessibility to the landmark buildings.

In response to this, the special permit approved to authorize the construction provides that the Gold Room and the dining room of the Whitelaw-Reid Wing in the Villard Houses will be incorporated into the new development and will be made accessible to the public. In addition, a through-block lobby will provide access to the landmark buildings from 50th and 51st Sts. In response to community fears that the buildings' exteriors or interiors might be defaced or damaged, the new zoning amendment includes a landmark preservation program which establishes the necessary protective measures to be implemented at all stages of construction. "Legislative Quilt" It) voting for approval of the plan, Commission Chairman Victor Marrero said, "By operating in tandem with existing landmark preservation laws, the new zoning provisions wil encourage the retention of landmark' buildings while insuring that they are properly maintained and that their significant interiors are open to the public." Commissioner Gordon Davis described the approved legislation, which requires Board of Estimate approval, as "a complex legislative quilt which attempts to strike an appropriate balance between competing public interests and private rights." In voting against the proposal, Commissioner Chester Rapkin noted that while the approved legislation was "the best that is feasible under most constricting limitations," the city 600 Workers In Protest at Mew Hospital By HUGH VVYATT Faced with the threat of losing their jobs, more than 600 hospital workers demonstrated yesterday in front of the new North Central Bronx Hospital at 210th St. and Kossuth Ave.

"We are here because we care about residents of the Bronx receiving adequate and quality medical care," declared JoAnne DeVito, an employe of the hospital, who was a spokesman for the demonstrators. Although the new $100 million hospital has been completed for nearly three years, only a few outpatient departments have been opened by the Health and Hospitals which runs this and 15 other municipal hospitals. Meanwhile, various city and state officials were meeting in private yesterday to discuss what to do about either fully opening the hospital, selling it, or turning it over to the Montefiore Hospital, which is a voluntary hospital. One reason the hospital not yet opened is that the state Health Department has refused to grant the corporation an operating certificate. Sources said that since the corporation is plagued with a number of problems, budgetary and others, state officials are fearful that if the 416-bed facility is opened on a piecemeal basis, a situation similar to the one at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx could develop.

Lincoln, also a new hospital, has been experiencing scores of problems, ranging from vandalism and inefficiency to theft, since it opened last summer. fice building windows couldn't see it, Griffith was wearing a nasty little cut over his right eye a remnant of an unsuccessful Berlin bout last weekend. "It looks much worse than it is," Griffith shrugged. "It's just a nick." A trophy for "outstanding performer" went to Orval Deputy of the Brooklyn team, but Griffith and much of the audience seemed to favor 18-year-old Leroy Jermott, another Brooklyn boxer. "He's a tough little kid," Griffith said.

And to prove it, Jermott out-punched Sam Lopez to win his contest. Although Manhattan's corporate plazas have been the site of concerts, contests and even archery exhibitions, yesterday's boxing match probably marked a new wrinkle in noontime diversion. "I think this will show more people what boxing is all about," said Olympic lightweight winner Davis, who wore his gold medal around his neck. "I see some potential champions here." No boxing match, of course, would be authentic without some irate fans. And so when Brooklyn's Robert Francis won a close decision over Bronx's Pedro Santiago, loud boos and Bronx cheers erupted from Santiago's pals.

"I think it was a bad judgement bad," complained spectator Benjamin Mercado. "Santiago had the fight!" By DICK BRASS The big boys from Brooklyn battled bravely to beat a brawling Bronx bunch yesterday and when you hear language like this you know the talk is about boxing. The event attended by Olympic Gold Medal Champion Howard Davis and former middleweight champ Emile Griffith was a noon-time open-air boxing ma ten in Manhattan's Grace Plaza at Sixth Ave. and W43d The champions, however, confined their activities to presenting awards and signing autographs while more than 1,000 cheering fight fans watched 10 Police Athletic League boxers trade leather. And, when it was over, Brooklyn's Howard Houses Center had pasted Bronx's Patrolmen Edward P.

Lynch Center, four bout3 to one. Berlin Souvenir "I love to see these kids box because I started out like this myself," Griffith explained while Latin friends of the Bronx boxers shouted "Mira!" and "Siguelo!" "Look out! Follow him!" Although fans leaning out of of tin iUTiliKlM ti'x 1 I.