Daily News from New York, New York • 40

Tram takes 'em for a joy-ride Atlanta tesn found slain; toll novj 20 By RON HOWELL Atlanta (AP) The body of Curtis Walker, a missing 13-year-old black youth, was found floating in a river yesterday in suburban DeKalb County, raising the toll of black children slain in the Atlanta area to 20 over the last 19 months, Public Safety Director Dick Hand announced. A preliminary autopsy showed that Walker, who had been missing since Feb. 19, had been asphyxiated. Hand said at a press conference. Walker's body was found by a fireman who spotted the corpse from a bridge above' the South River, said DeKalb County police spokesman Chuck Johnson.

The youth apparently was last seen when he stopped at a gun shop near his northwest Atlanta home to see if there was any work for him. His mother had ordered him not to leave the houF3, she said, but he away -when she was not looking and never returned. I if -J nm. "Finally, finally! The day has finally arrived," shouted 73year-old Shirley Ettzinger, her arms extended high and wide. Ettzinger was one of the first Roosevelt Island residents to enter the tram station around noon yesterday for the 60 cent ride to Manhattan on a red and white sky car the first such trip across the East River since the tramway was shut down last November.

Most of the two dozen islanders who trickled into the station talked with a giddy sense of relief about the inconveniences they suffered during the four-month absence of their aerial link to Manhattan. "Now I'll be only four minutes late for school instead of 45 minutes late," said Mark Perkiss, a 21-year-old student at Manhattan Community College. He lives in the Rivercross co-op on Roosevelt Island. Like other residents who had to find alternate routes across the water, Perkiss would take a city bus that headed eastward into Queens and then picked up its regular Long Island City riders before entering Manhattan. THE BUS TRIP took about 45 minutes during rush hour.

The tram takes 3V4 minutes. Tram service for the 5,500 residents of the planned community was halted on Nov. 7 for regular maintenance. Twice in December, problems developed as workers tried to replace the steel "haul rope," causing the cable to fall on E. 60th St.

on Dec. 2 and to sag Dec. 19. The tram was then closed indefinitely by Its operator, the VSL Corp. Yesterday, as the tram finally slid into the station, the crowd of Roosevelt Islanders shouted, "Hooray!" They repeated the cheer as, midway through the trip, they passed the car that was coming from the Manhattan side.

On 1 I -iSiM, p7fZ v. 1 Calif, court won't monkey with evolution ANTHONY PESCATORE DAILY NEWS Roosevelt Island tram is back in service after four-month shutdown. ation. The men in the control tower looked stunned for a couple of seconds. Irving Siva, the supervisor, said there was some "code interference" that set off the "safety signal," but that the problem was neither "critical" nor "an emergency." the Roosevelt Island-bound vehicle were state and city officials.

Later in the afternoon, as the cars were pulling into the stations on either side, a buzzer sounded in the tram's machine room on Roosevelt Island, where VSL employes oversee the oper CsG biaHi roamed head off Sacramento, Calif. (Combined Dispatches) A state judge ruled yesterdaj that California's policy on the teaching of evolution does not violate the rights of fundamentalists, who believe in the biblical version of creation. In a concession to the fundamentalists, however, Superior Court Judge Irving Perluss said th'e state Board of Education must include in future guidelines to local schools a statement that the Darwinian explanation of the origins of life must be taught as theory not as fact. Fundamentalists who filed the civil suit contended the state required the teaching of Charles Darwin's 19th-century theory of evolution as fact, and thus violated the rights of children who believe the biblical story of creation. Deputy' Attorney General Robert Tyler called the ruling "a qualified victory.

We got our hand slapped in public a couple of times." Richard Turner, lawyer for the creationists, said, "You never get everything. You take all you can get" Graduate Development at Indiana University. ALL THREE FINALISTS are black, satisfying a demand by minority students, who make up two thirds of the enrollment. But Harles-ton's appointment also apparently satisfied the faculty, who asked that the new president be a noted scholar who could uphold the prestige of the oldesW134 years of the City University's colleges. Harleston, who holds a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Rochester, has had a long and varied career as professor of psychology, researcher and administrator.

REACHED AT HIS home in Massachusetts, minutes after Kibbee phoned to tell him of his appointment, Harleston said he was "just delighted" with the board's decision. "I certainly do (accept)," he said laughing, "and we're very excited about getting started." Harleston was one of three finalists chosen from more than 200 applicants after a nearly two-year search to fill the position. He will assume the Aug. 3. The other two final candidates were Rep.

Shirley Chisholm (D-Brooklyn) and Homer Alfred Neal, professor of physics and Dean of Research and By MARY ANN GIORDANO Bernard W. Harleston, a prominent psychologist and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Tufts University, was named yesterday to head the City College of New York. Harleston, 51, is the first black to be named president of such a large and distinguished branch of the city university system. His appointment was recommended by Chfmcellor Robert Kibbee yesterday afternoon and unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees of City University in a special meeting that lasted less than a half hour. hoM lie gi.ODT i (Up at Sty, a Hallelujah Day-feu THE END.

all of it became routine. The bat TV) 0 re 3 system as Dr. Bernard W. Harleston now will as president of City College. It is the taking down of another barrier, and every time that happens it is the same: It becomes something of a Hallelujah Day.

"Great," is what Carl McCall said. "I'm really pleased," is the way Dr. Roscoe Brown put it. And that was the way it went yesterday, late in the afternoon when, quietly, the word was passed. But the.

deeper feeling was that it was something that should have happened a long time ago. And the talk was that it happens now only because City College has fallen on hard times. IT'S PART OF AN OLD STORY, the one, in which it's said that when blacks finally get in, whatever it is they're in is either in ruins or close to it Always, a until the cities had become so run-down that those who could had begun to flee. Still, the appointment of Harleston is important. In the afternoon yesterday, when the trustees made their decision, it meant that leadership of one of the crucial institutions in the city passed into the hands of a man who was not white.

There is added significance with City College, because this is an educational institution in which the situation is not entirely like that in the city's public schools. There most of the students are either black or Hispanic. But control of the public school system is another matter. That has not passed to blacks and Hispanics. "We had eight senior colleges in the city and no black president," Carl McCall said.

"That was wrong. And it shouldn't have taken three years to change it But it's done, and nobody can quarrel with the final See CALDWELl, Page 9 tles had already been fought, and what that meant was that yesterday all that was left was to make it official. And in the middle of an afternoon that was both sunny and wintry, that was done. The trustees gathered in a fine old building on the East Side and, using little time, elected a black man EARL CALDWELL 3 president of City College. It is a bit of history.

Until now ho black man has prime example has been leadership of the cities, yL ajttrcKiPt Mackr did BOt begin to win mayoral elections.