Daily News from New York, New York • 4

1 SUNDAY NE.WS, SEPTEMBER 3, j974. 4 Hews photo by Jim Mooney Grandstand at Suffolk Meadows, Yaphank, L.L, where construction was halted when builder was unable to find further funding. Money lb Js Tighter BmlMmjjs Step Mkkv By OWEN MORITZ (Seventh of a series Tight money is a problem that has dogged Ronald Parr ever since he set out a couple years ago to build Suffolk Meadows, a $20 million quarter-horse race track in Yaphank, IX Bonald Parr was and probably still is a budding millionaire at age 37, the builder with his older brother of 9,000 homes in Suffolk County. BLUE HTTiL Huge office complex in Rockland County, one of the early casualties of the 1969-71 recession. The building remains largely unrented and helped to account for the downturn in the Uris Bros, empire.

1633 BROADWAY Uris defaulted on $62 million construction loan for 48-story tower because of inflation and renting factors. It was the biggest foreclosure since depression. STARRETT-LEHIGH LOFT The city's largest factory building, 26th St. and 11th was auctioned off at a foreclosure sale recently. Twenty years ago it housed 5,000 workers, many of them printers; it was half empty at the foreclosure sale.

More than 30 of Manhattan's 4,200 lofts are vacant, and future considered not bright. HOUSING High cost of construction plus limited availability of construction loans and unpredictable mortgage money account for a 41 drop in residential construction in 1974. The cost of new housing, which rose at an 11 rate through 1973, now rising about 16 because of sharp increases in the cost of building materials, labor and money. A sampling of the toll that the local economy and inflation have taken on contsraction in the metropolitan areas AMERICAN HOME PRODUCTS CO. Altered plans last March to build a 31-story tower of structural steel at Third Ave.

and 44th St. because the cost of structural steel has doubled in a year ($500 to $1,000 a ton). Building being redesigned for reinforced concrete. BATTERY PARK CITY Commercial plans set back because of pessimistic office market in New York. Developer says he won't build until he has a major office tenant lined up.

NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE As far back as 1971 recession, directors of exchange postponed plans to build a new stock exchange at the foot of Wall St. on landfill in the East River as part of the Manhattan Landing development. WORLD TRADE CENTER, SOUTHEAST PLAZA Work starting behind schedule for Southeast Plaza building as negotiations are finally complete to house new Commodities Exchange. inflation: The Human Cost I When the houses were finished, young Parr assembled 2,200 acres off the Long Island Expressway. The future of quarter-horse racing looked good, I and the economy looked better.

He got as far as erecting a grand- stand for 25,000 spectators. That was last February. Work has been halted I since. Big Money, Big Problems Inflation has raised the track's cost at least $2 million since February, 1 should work ever resume. As it is, Parr already has invested $15 million, I and work is more than a year behind schedule.

The delay is due in no small part to the vagaries of the economy and of big-time construction. There was the problem of getting I money and when he finally got it, after treks to local banks, there were the month when work abruptly halted, allegedly for need of municipal approval for sewers. Many had already put down $10,000. The rumors, never verified, were that money problems plagued the project, though work has since resumed. Slowing Down in Manhattan Prospective homeowners in Rockland County lost their down payments when several home builders, unable to get needed funding, went bankrupt.

In midtown Manhattan, some of the biggest names in construction in the (Continued on page 122, col. 1) thrown in. Like Parr's grandstand, a number of projects have suddenly halted in midstream as builders search frantically for funds to keep going. A $50 million hotel and apartment complex on the site of the old Garden City Hotel got as far as a cavity in the ground before there was a search for new funds. "It's the worst money market we have ever seen for construction funds," says an official of the investment trust that was behind the Garden City complex.

Prospective owners of condominiums in the Village Mall high-rise complex in Bayside were stunned last accumulated bills: $2.8 million in liens at one point, $700,000 still due for electrical work Suffolk Meadows Is not a small man's problem. It involves big money. But its difficulties are dramatic proof that inflation hits not only the little guy but the businessman talking in millions, and when he falters, the economy falters still more. What happened at Suffolk Meadows, 75 miles from New York City the lack of capital, the high cost of getting money, the delay in obtaining financing coupled with a soulful economy is being repeated throughout the metropolitan area, but with something new s.7?!i?5iaj-;iaett' amntaitsmm mnauiwi Hf i ii Ei i mil 1 1 iinii i iai iiifii i i natuiif i hh juui mt hi tUiiini uuti i jihhii i i i i aiii hi i i ttii tunaan i i im ti turn. rnstorms? Wh11 ie ilA ord ia fading the Store as By JERRY GREENE suggested that he drop a few of the speaking engagements, that he curtail the traveling and lend what might be called the best possible assistance to the GOP nominees by sticking to the Oval Office, trying to do something about inflation and getting the government back in order after the torturous months of impeachment trauma.

Ford isn't House minority leader any more, but President, and even Presidents traditionally haven't (fTAtPDTTOIL OS US LI bouncing from such visitors as Flournoy to ambassadors and foreign ministers, interlarding these with leaders of Congress and members of the cabinet. He is, of course, trying to establish his own identity. It is likely he will be trying to use his travels and personal contacts with the people to refurbish his image after the pardon. He has acknowledged publicly that he is aware of the damage he has inflicted upon his presidency. Risks Political Hazard But there is considerable additional risk involved, and not just to political imagery.

As the inflation crisis continues to swell, with no relief in sight, the President may easily find his ardent travels during this critical period resulting in over-exposure. He may not too late, that people generally would much prefer to see the head man steady at the helm of the ship rather than see him racing around the deck, hoisting good-luck pennants on every loose halyard. Ford is facing a situation never before encountered by a President, coming along after an impeachment crisis and a resignation less than 90 days before an off-year election and in a period of economic crisis. He has to feel his own way. But he has friends who believe he would do better by himself, and by the various Republican nominees, by sticking around the Oval Office and presiding.

We haven't had much of that the last year or so. Washington, Sept. 21 In terms of highspeed handshaking, President Ford's travel schedule between now and the Nov. 5 election sounds as if he is running for constable of Bad Axe, Mich. There will be intervals when he is at the White House, to be sure, but the touring plans he has in mind, as released this week, give rise to the question who's going to be minding the store.

Some of the seven one or two-day trips Ford has locked in between Monday and Oct. 19 are of the type customarily called "nonpolitical" by any occupant of the White House. On Monday, for example, he will be speaking before a world energy conference in Detroit. Plagued by Pardon But whatever the tag, the schedule as a whole must be branded definitely political, for Ford will be seeking to help Republican friends win election, particularly those who are running for either house of Congress. The President will have made appearances in 11 states by Oct.

20; he probably will add nearly as many more between that date and Election Day, as the pressures from his old friends in the House increase. It is known that some of Ford's advisers have had much luck extending political coattails to lesser candidates in off-election years. Ford's coattails, short enough because of his abbreviated time in office, have definitely been clipped to the beltline by his pardon of Richard Nixon. Houston Flournoy, the GOP candidate for governor in California, who visited Ford here Wednesday, told reporters afterward that, while he would be glad to have the President's help in his campaign: "He's not as valuable as he was before he was tarnished by the pardon." Flournoy said the pardon had hurt all Republican candidates in California. Ford has been running his office at breakneck speed, cramming in appointments without end,.