Daily News from New York, New York • 168

DAILY NEWS, NOVEMBER1' 13, C12 WTt' FHi Barg-ain-IHiinters Pkk Bones of She mmlpih Ity DONALD SINGLETON Hotel furniture is often built first for cheapness Inivintr 1.000 dressers, price counts), second for looks (when you're (flashiness to hide the cheapness) and third for discomfort (an uncomfortable chair never gets worn out). r(fU ff (in Daughertr, a vice president of National Content Liquidators, out of Dayton, Ohio, which has the contract to sell the hotel's fixtures. Daugherty said he expects to clean out the hotel without making any further price reductions, except when it comes to some of the lumpier beds. And that's it for the old Hotel McAlpin. Coing.

Going. Cone! News photo by Jim Hushes Chairs and TV sets were big items on this floor of McAlpin Hotel. This Messinger Would Bring Word of Peace 1 1 i M1H 11 ill So if you were In the market for nornt old. cheap, flashy, uncomfortable furniture, and you were among the opening day crowd at the Hotel McAlpin yesterday, you were la the right I'ldce. You were also In the right place If vou were looking for brass lamps for $23.

Formica table for $20 and $30. sheets for $1. blankets for $3 and $8, and a lot of other stuff that has seen, along with the McAlpin Itself, better lay. It was a sad day for the- 64 year-old grand hotel at 46 VV. 34th St.

The heat was off. and after you paid your two bucks at the door (nothing's free these days) you found yourself in a freezing lobby surrounded by chilly bargain hunters and assorted sample merchandise. Chairs were hung on display form balconies where newlweds once daydreamed. The Dolliwog Lounge was strewn with tables for sale. Sheets and blankets and drapes were heaped in a corner of the lobby.

In a second floor ballroom. 50 television sets being tested by shoppers blared out a cacophony of Love of Life." "Stumpers." "Happy Days," "700 Club" and "The Blue Dahil-in." from a 1946 movie with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. When that movie was new, 30 years aco, the McAlpin Hotel was some fancy place. Nearly AH Cone Don't take anyone's word for It. Ask some of the elderly women who were walking through the, confusion of the lobby toward the elevators yesterday morning.

The McAl pin's 1.200 rooms are nearly all vacant, in preparation for the construction work that will turn the building into an apartment house after the 120 days of the sale. Hut there are still 28 people living as full time, rent-comtrollcd residents of the old hotel, most of them people who have been there since Alan Ladd was a sex symbol. "I moved here 30 years ago, and I've watched it go down the drain," said one Kray haired woman who wouldn't give her name. Most of the unusual and desirable Items went early in the day, said John who whistles while smoking 12 cigars at the same time, and C.G. (Buckshot) Wilson, who a bull's-eye at 25 feet while holding a pistol upside down and pulling the trigger with his pinky despite the fact that his right hand is crippled and two fingers on his left hand are missing.

Another guest, Herbert Bowling, can blow smoke out of his ears, but he declined to show how because he recently underwent surgery on his inner ear. G. S. Rai and Mohindra S. Ogra, two scientists at Southern University in New Orleans, say they are on the brink of discovering a kind of lawn grass that only needs to be cut once every 10 weeks.

It's a chemical process. Now if the good doctos could- only discover a kind of leaf that doesn't have to be raked David Oestreicher Rlna Messinger, the Israeli beauty who is reigning as Miss Universe, and Howard Samuels, former OTB chairman, are teaming up tonight to sell Israel bonds at a bash at the Casino on the Park in the Essex House Hotel. Miss Messinger, 20, says she would like to visit Arab countries as Miss Universe "to help promote understanding." So far, she hasn't had any invitations. Meanwhile, Mike Dayton, the reigning Mr. America, says he is training to make a 212-foot jump from the Golden 3HAKMXC NEWS Gate Bridge In San Francisco to prove that all those bulging muscles he has can save his life in such a plunge.

"We've done a lot of research," the 27-year-old strongman said at his home in Concord, Calif. Antoni Jagoginski of Englewood, got a traffic ticket in Joliet, 111., a couple of years ago, and the case finally tame up for a hearing Thursday. Jagoginski. 47, drove the 1,100 milesfor his date in court and was vindicated by JJudge Michael Orenic, who ruled that the prosecutor had failed to prove the charge. Jagoginski said, "Thanks," and headed back home to Colorado.

John R. Holdridge, the United States ambassador in Singapore, was at the city's zoo yesterday to present an 800- Rina Messinger It rtigny time for her pound female hippopotamus as a bicentennial gift for a love sick male hippo, Congo, who weights an even ton. Congo's mate, Lucy, died recently, and Congo was so sad that he escaped from the zoo and wallowed in a lake for 40 days. Fourteen people who were subjects of the late Robert Ripley's "Believe It or Not" newspaper feature held a reunion Thursday in San Francisco. They included Simon Argevitch of Oakland, 2 Air Guardsmen Die in Crash Gulfport, (UPD Two Pennsylvania Air National Guardsmen were killed Thursday when their small observation plane crashed in the Gulf of Mexico near Waveland, a Air Foree spokesman said.

The victims were Maj. John T. Baggs 38, of Freehold, and Sgt. David L. Port-noy; 25, of Philadelphia, the spokesman at Keesler Air Force Base said.

Beame's Finally Going Back Where He Cam From husband, Al, is the author of a history using Culhane's name on Delli Bovi's was a historic landing, the first time a plane that big had ever set down at the tiny airport. After calming down, Vaccarello said he was happy to relax after working overtime on an antilittering campaign. So he picked up the local island newspaper. It bore the headline, "Start Antilittering Drive on St. Croix." Barbara Blum, wife of former Lindsay aide Robert Blum, got a zillion phone calls after an announcement in.

Georgia that Barbara Blum was being put in charge of Jimmy Carter's transition team. Turned out that it wasn't New York's Barbara Blum after all, even though initial reports' said the Barbara Blum who was chosen was the former head of the State Board of Social Welfare. The new trasition boss is another Barbara Blum, from Atlanta. She worked with former New York City welfare chief Jule Sugarman, who is now a deputy mayor in Atlanta and a big behind-the-scenes Carter aide. New York's Mrs.

Blum also worked with Sugarman, when he was here. Moynihan is. thinking of Tammany Hall. She once worked with Moynihan and his wife in the Harriman administration in Albany. If she leaves New York for Washington, it'll be Arriverderci, Roma! The gurrdhouse outside Gov.

Carey's mansion in Albany is falling apart, so the state will build a new one for the state troopers-who guard the guv and his family. Bids for the contract will be opened Wednesday. The State Office Building at 270 Broadway os loaded with fire code violations, but work should start next month to make renovations on the building, opposite City Hall, which houses such agencies as the Division for the Handicapped and the Commission for the Blind. Secretary of State Mario Cuomo's book about the Forest Hills, Queens, racial war over low-income housing is dynamite urban studies on campuses across America. But in Forest Hills the war is so forgotten that a bookstore is now giving copies' of the By THOMAS POSTER When Mayor T.eame flic to Israel tonijrht with his wife, Mary, for an official visit, it will be his first trip across the Atlantic in GJ years.

Beame came here when he was three months old from London, where his parent a topped en route to America from Poland. Now -70. the mayor has never before gone farther than Canada, where he visaed hia son. and Mexico, where he went on an official junket. The mayor's El Al flight will go nonstop to Tel Aviv, passing up London.

However, Boa me will stretch out his Jaunt on the way back and stop in Home, where he will have a private audience with Pope Paul, and in London, where he was born. Oh my Cod. am I red faced." said Manhattan Boiough President Percy Sutton. Ha sent a congratulatory note to reelected Assemblyman Alfred Delli Hovl It Queens) that read, "With Jimmy Carter In Washington and (Assemblyman) Thomas Culhane in Albany, things have got to be looking up for New York." I- Aftet belmj advised of his mistake note Sutton hand-delivered another note to the Queens lawmaker that said, Wow did 1 flub it!" Councilman Matthew J. Troy Jr.

may be behind bars, but his pals will toss him a testimonial anyway. It's a $25-a ticket cocktail party to be held Nov. 22 at r-oy's favorite restaurant, Antun's. ia Queens Village, where thr Troys live. Sponsors expect anywhere POLITICAL NOTES from 500 to 1.000 paying guests.

Even with good befeavior, Troy won't be able to make it. He has serve 60 days on his federal sentence, which started Oct. 22. The Senate election battle between Incumbent James L. Buckley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan ended two of the hottest romances in town, between key staffers almost on the same level in both camps.

When Sanitation Commissioner Anthony Vaccarello went to St. Croix for a quickie he got. off the giant jumbo jet and kissed the ground. The airline had, just announced that it book away free; 'with any. major pur- about naming Roma qonnabie as a press, aide.

The affable Mrs. 'Connable's4 chaser.