Daily News from New York, New York • 119

if Daily News, Wednesday, February 13, 1985 NEIGHBORHOOD By JOAN SIIEPARD Because many important buildings on Fifth Avenue do not have landmark status to protect them from developers, the Muncipal Arts Society has urged the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate Fifth Ave. between 48th St and 58th St as a historical district, a spokesman for the society i- Wk t' ie' Jazz on Monday Two contemporary jazz trios consisting of European and American musicians will appear at 8 p.m. Monday at Carnegie Recital Hall in a concert sponsored by Goethe House New York and Sound Unity. The concert, "Collaboration," has been organized by German bass player Peter Kowald. Free opera The New York City Opera will have an open dress rehearsal of "Rigoletto," free to the public, on Saturday at 10 a.m.

and 3 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. at Aaron Davis Hall, 134th St. and Convent Ave. on the City College Campus.

Reservations required: 690-4100. Baroque lectures Columbia University is giving a series of lectures on "the Grand Baroque: Art and Values." Music, art, architecture, and fashion will be covered during the 10-part lecture series, 7 to 9:15 p.m., from Feb. 28 to May 9. the fee for the series is $95, or $60 for any five lectures. For information, call 678-3064.

Dance and talk Hanna E. Kapit will discuss how mutal interests lead to meaningful realtionships, and Herb Rotman will teach social dances at 1 :30 p.m. on Feb. 24 at the Einhorn Auditorium at Lenox Hill Hospital. 131 E.

76th St. A $5 admission includes refreshments. I TZZZl it was discovered that the Department of Buildings had issued demolition permits for the two buildings while they were on the Landmarks Commission's calendar being considered for landmark status. Although the Rizzoli and Coty buildings have been landmarked, Steadsol Fifth, an investment group, is going to seek to overturn the landmark designation, according to Maureen Connelly, a Steadsol Fifth Connelly is a former press secretary to Mayor Koch. ONE OF THE avenue's most beautiful buildings, the Gotham Hotel, became an eyesore when it was closed and boarded up last year after a European company, Nova Park, stopped work on elaborate renovations.

"The Gotham Hotel could come down tomorrow," said Joyce Matz, the chairman of the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 5, which covers Midtown Manhattan from 59th St to 14th between Lexington and Eighth Aves. "There is absolutely nothing to protect the Gotham," Matz said. "We are quite concerned about it and the whole area." The European company ems The Gotham Hotel: A landmark lacking official statu. dows boarded up wKh plywood, the hotel an incongruous sight on Fifth Ave. "Fifth Avenue is dliUng-uished and distincUva," MaU said.

"Trump Tower and Olympic, which are glass, don't, have the look of Fifth Avenue, which is assanUally limestone." Wood said that Fifth Avenue is an icon of New York. "If we didn't have a Fifth Avenue, we would hire someone to build it," he said. defaulted on a $5 million loan from the Flushing Federal Savings Bank and the hotel is now wrapped In litigation. The building is technically not abandoned because rent and tax money are being paid to the owner, Sol Goldman, by a consortium of German banks that took Nova Park leases for the building and land; but with its elegant entrance and first-floor win said. "The future of Fifth Avenue, literally hangs in the balance," said Anthony Wood, the Municipal Art Society's director of public affairs.

A Landmarks Commission spokesman has said the issue is "under discussion." Along the 10-block strip are Rockefeller Center, the St. Regis Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman, the Gotham Hotel, the Fifth Ave. Presbyterian Church, 730 Fifth the Tiffany Building, the Elizabeth Arden Building, the Coca-Cola Building, and the Harry Winston Building, none of which is landmarked. In the same stretch, St Patrick's Cathedral, Thomas Church, the Coty and Rizzoli buildings, the University Club, and Cartier are land-marked. BECAUSE Manhattan real estate is so valuable, real-estate developers probably lust more after cold buildings than hot saunas.

Two weeks ago, the Rizzoli at 712 Fifth Ave. and the Coty Building at 714 Fifth Ave. were given 24-hour police protection because some city officials feared the buildings might be torn down overnight despite their landmark status. Controversy erupted after Tenant X. 1 ft to hm mti EiiEc i A Manhattan tenants' group spent yesterday in Albany urging legislators to make the 421-A tax exemption program permanent to protect their rent- One-woman show Actress Beah Richards will put on a one-woman show, "A Black Woman Speaks," from Feb.

27 to March 3 at the Roger Furman New Heritage Repertory Theater, 290 Lenox Ave. at 126th St. For ticket Information, call 876-3272. Paintings shown The work of the contemporary American primitive painters, Janis Price and Shelly, are on exhibit at the Jay Johnson Gallery, 1044 Madison Ave. at 79th until March 1.

The gallery Is open every day from noon to 6 p.m. Dance exhibit "Images of Dance," an exhibit of prints, manuscripts, photographs, and costume and set design from the 17th to 20th Centuries, is on exhibit at the New York Public Library, 42 St. and Fifth until May 24. included in the exhibit "photos of Isadora Duncan and Marrha Graham. By JOHN MELIA office.

Thousands more would be susceptible to fat rent hikes after June 30, his office estimated last month.) Stein has urged state leaders to make the 421-A program permanent According to Stein spokesman Michael Rosano, 00 of the city's 421-A units are in Manhattan. In urging that the expiring law be made permanent, Stein said, "This year thousands of tenants and in subsequent years tens of thousands face the grim prospect of exploding rents, the loss of their right to, renew their leases and to stabilized apartments. The program, which expires May 14, was begun in 1974 and grants property tax reductions to landlords who construct new buildings or substantially renovate rental apartment buildings. In exchange, the apartments are rent stabilized. Accompanying the 50 members of the 421-A Coalition were two members of Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein's staff.

(As many as 2,000 rent-stabilized tenants in Manhattan may face doubled and tripled rent increases after May 14, according to an ear lier estimate from Stein's basic building services and the further loss of the bargaining power they now enjoy in the event of cooperative or condominum conversion." Stein said the city's rental housing vacancy rate standi at less than 2. "If the State Legislature fails to act to extend rent stabilizations for these tenants," he laid, "it effectively acts to throw 421-A tenants into the atraet bo-cause their rents will soar to levels they cannot afford." Rosano said Stein wti In favor of keeping the tax exemptions for landlords as Andrew Stein ML-S.