Newsday from New York, New York • 28

1 Phone Items to (212) 303-2850 SOHO A Traditional Role In Greek Traditional Music Nearly 55 yean ago, Lazaros Hariaiadea started pluying folk music with his brother-in-law, Pendes Halkias, in Epiroe, a mountainous area of Greece bordering Albania. Now the mainstays of the Halkias Family Orchestra, the two are keeping the traditional Epirot music alive in New York City. With Halkias on the clarinet and Harisiades playing the lauto, a long-necked lute, the four-man orchestra will open an evening of Epirot Greek music and dance at 8 p.m. April 25, sponsored by the Ethnic Folk Arts Center at 179 Var-ick St. in Soho.

Joseph Kaloyanides Grasiosi, a specialist in Greek music and dance, will teach traditional Epirot dances from 9 to 10 p.m., and then the orchestra will return to provide the music for all the dancers to practice their new steps. Halkias, 83, whose family has been known for its musicians for the past 150 years, received the National Heritage Fellowship Award for achievement in the traditional arts in 1985. Also performing will be John Roussos, who has played the santouri, a hammered dulcimer, for the orchestra over the past eight years. They will be joined by another musician playing the defi, a large tambourine. Admission for the entire evening is $6, or $5.50 for center members.

Further information is available at (212) 691-9510. The Beacon Theater, one of the few midsize concert halls in the city, is In line to become a nightclub. At left, the opulent interior, constructed during the '20s for movies and vaudeville, is under city landmark protection and cannot be altered without the permission of the city Landmark Preservation Commission. The nightclub plan will come before the landmarks commission by late next month. MANHATTAN CLOSEUP Nightclub Plan on the Bill For Landmark Theater UPPER EAST SIDE 180 Furry Friends Need Foster Care Homes still are needed for the 180 dogs, cats, birds and rabbits who were among the 355 animals found last month living under what authorities called life-threatening conditions in a two-story Bronx building.

To encourage animal lovers to offer foster homes to these pets, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Animal Medical Center now are offering a free year of veterinary care for the animals. "We found homes for the other ones. We still need to place the 180 left. They are not in the peak of health, but we don't have any animals that are in danger of dying," said ASPCA spokeswoman Margaret Holman. Because of a pending court case against the buildings owner, the animals cannot be adopted.

The building, at 420 Morris Park was once an ASPCA shelter, but it was sold in 1982 to Susanne Jeffries. Holman said Jeffries now faces cruelty-to-animals charges. The wltnala may be seen at the ASPCAs Manhattan Adoption Center, 441 E. 92nd between 11 e-m. and 7 p.m.

The Animal Medical Center is at 510 E. 62nd St S3 I landmark, however, convinced Coquelin that it could be a nightclub. "Not a disco, a nightclub, said Coquelin, who operates other New York, Chicago and Los Angeles night spots. "The term disco is synonymous with too much noise, too much light and drugs. Pm against all that.

And so are residents of the Upper West Side who have organized the "Save the Beacon Theater Committee. They have collected $11,000 for legal fees and solicited 6,000 signatures on petitions opposing the proposal, said chairman Dan Meltzer. On the committees side are Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins, City Council President Andrew Stein, Coundlwoman Ruth Messinger and other local politicians, who at a press conference last week urged the Landmarks Commision not to grant the certificate of appropriateness to Coquelin. "The integrity of the landmark law is at issue here, Messinger said. On Coquelins side is architect Charles Platt, a former member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission who voted to give the building landmark designation.

Platt calls the design for the Beacon a "set that is proplike in itself and removable without damaging the building. Coquelins company, Babylon Enterprises, has already signed a seven-year lease for the building with its owners, the Beacway Corp. The lease provides for an escrow account with funds to restore the building to its present condition when the lease ends, he said. Landmarks Commission spokeswoman Lillian Ayala said the 11 members of the commision would meet in late this month or early next month to vote on whether to approve the plan. By Adrianne Goodman The Beacon Theater was once a guiding light on the Great White Way, where movies were screened with background music from a pipe organ.

Recently, the 2, 708-seat theater has served as one of the citys few midsized concert halls, Iwnking acts such as blues artist B. B. King; the folk group, Peter, Paul and Mary, and professional wrestling. But if impresario Olivier Coquelin has his way, the Beacon will be transformed yet again, this time into a nightclub. Plans call for the removal of the seats, installation of a wooden platform to make the floor level with the stage and a network of lights, speakers and sprinklers suspended above the dance floor.

Bars and seats would be installed around the ilnniw floor and on the mezzanine, which would also hold a restaurant and kitchen. Completed in 1929, the Beacon dates back to an era of architectural opulence, with gilt ceilings and lavish decorations in a freewheeling mii of Greek, Ranan, rococo and renaissance styles. The rotunda soars 30 feet high, and inside the theater, poles covered with maroon velvet hold gold beacons aloft on either side of the stage. Built by Samuel L. (Roxy) Rothafel, the Beacon was intended, like its counterpart, the Roxy Theater, to double as a vaudeville house.

The Roxy was razed in the 1960s, but in 1979, the citys Landmarks Preservation Commission dignatil the insida of the Beacon a city landmark. Because the interior is under the commissions protection, it cannot be altered without a "certificate of appropriateness from the commission. The elements that made the Beacon a HARLEM Run for the Money Seems Theme of 5K Race Good health and getting a job go hand in hand at the Community Service Council of Greater Harlem. Proof of that is the Central Harlem 5K Run for Jobson Sunday, May 4, the aim of which is to find both summer work and permanent jobs for neighborhood youths, project coordinator Seymour Glasgow said. As an incentive, the council is offering job interviews in the clerical, banking and computer industries to youths who complete the run, Glae-gow said.

In the past two years of the program, he said, "weve been able to place quite a few people injobs. The 5K (five kilometer juat over two miles) run will begin at 8 a.m. at the corner of 133rd Street and Seventh Avenue. The course runs until to 110th Street, then back up Seventh to 134th Street The entrance fee is $3. To register, call the council at (212) 926-0281 or (212) i.