Newsday from New York, New York • 7

Swiss banks to pay but details unclear It is unclear how the money will be distributed is going to take a Solomon the Wise to do Lobet 75 a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp said yesterday One of the original plaintiffs Gizella Weisshaus has opted out This is going to be said Weisshaus 68 an Auschwitz survivor Weisshaus of Williamsburg said the settlement was unfair because it includes victims who were not depositors including refugees turned away at the Swiss border and slave laborers cannot take money that we left on deposit and give it to whomever he she said of Korman A report ter former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found that as many as 54000 Swiss accounts were opened by Holocaust victims accounts that alone could be worth more than $L25 billion the entire settlement amount only reason for settling the case for Korman wrote the practical problem created by wholesale destruction of records and to a degree the passage of Wliile the case began in 1996 as an effort by depositors to regain their funds the settlement covers almost all worldwide Holocaust-era victims with potential claims against Swiss businesses or the Swiss government By Dan Morrison STAFF WRITER Holocaust survivors and their heirs were a step closer to collecting $125 billion from two Swiss banks yesterday after a federal judge approved a settlement in the long-running lawsuit More than a half-million people worldwide have possible claims in the class-action suit which charges that Credit Suisse First Boston and Union Bank of SwitzerlaiuTktole deposits and profited from Nazi -era slave labor In his long-awaited ruling Judge Edward Korman of US District Court in Brooklyn summed up the ambivalence surrounding the settlement by quoting Holocaust survivor Ernest Lobet of Glen Cove world is not perfect and the people that negotiated sure tried their very Lobet said at settlement hearings last year amount of money can possibly be fair under those And no amount of settlement money will make its way to the 600000 potential claimants many elderly and infirm for several months at least While $550 million is available now according to Roger Witten a Washington attorney for the banks it cannot be handed out until a complex distribution plan is finished could begin probably around the end of this said Elan Steinberg executive director of the World Jewish Congress which is part of the suit organization that you can possibly name came to say they spoke for the victims for the dead And no one can speak for the Holocaust survivor Ernest Lobet See HOLOCAUST on A46 Staying Cool Until No 4 Conies they can put a man on the moon why they keep the stations asked Shelly Stieb a Brooklyn resident who waited for the No 5 train the other day feels great if standing right there But take a couple of steps away and you New Yorkers want it alL Besides when was the last time a man took a stroll on the moon? Part of the problem in the stations stems from NYC success in air-conditioning trains The heat is intensified by the engines and air-conditioning units on the trains It is compounded by acceleration and braking But any relief from the searing heat no matter how small is welcomed down under Already you see long-suffering straphangers jockeying for the coolest spot on the platform as if going for the last seat on a crowded No 4 train You see them reaching up with their sweaty hands kind of like a shower of cool said Bob Slovak a transit spokesman "The passengers seem much calmer and said James Venable a transit worker at the Grand Central subway station need all the help we can get down Still in many parts of the platforms at Grand Central and in nearly every other New York subway station it feels more like an invigorating shower of hot chicken soup to start out your day It gets so hot down on the platforms that 33-year-old construction worker Anthony Clemens says: just want to get butt So far Die city has been spared anything like last summer's humidity but August is just five days away Slovak said officials would evaluate the fans and air cooling units at the end of the summer and decide whether to expand the program to other stations Meanwhile the platforms underneath Grand Central are among the most secure places in the transit system It seems every air cooler purchased came with a couple of police officers as a bonus At Union Square however officers were not spending too much time in the subways cooling asked one of New York's Finest quickly making his way toward the slivers of sunlight near the entrance to the subway sta Next time you need a police officer at the Grand Central subway station simply step into one of the imaginary comfort zones There was a time when police officers were rare sights on city subway platforms especially during the blazing summer months New Finest seemed to gravitate to the air-conditioned comfort of most train cars the constant buzz around the token booth or the divers of sunlight near station entrances At the Grand Central subway station however not hud to find Just look for the huge black boxes suspended from the ceiling over the middle of the platforms likely to find a couple of officers standing right there escaping the unbearable heat that chokes the platforms under Grand Central no matter how cool it is outside The cool draft emanating from the big boxes underneath Grand Central provides long-awaited relief in the infernal subway Only one of the 468 train stations howev-' er is blessed with this manna New York City Transit calls it This is a way of saying that not air conditioning but hey at least trying This could be the best thing in the New York underground since MetroCard discounts It really does feel cooler Well that is if standing right under the vents Maybe NYC Transit ought to paint blue boxes on the platforms at the precise spots with the message: STOP SUFFERING STAND HERE! The Metropolitan Transportation Authority spent $10 million to install 43 of the humming air coolers under Grand Central as part of a pilot program Though the coolers have been running since earlier this month several were not working properly this week An additional $1 million was spent on 32 ceiling fans in the blistering Union Square station When the fens were started a few weeks ago they sent gusts of dust and debris across the platforms The kinks have been worked out but the fans seem to be blowing a lot of hot air into the station got Venus Rosario 33 a paralegal from the Bronx ssid as she waited under Grand Central could it cost $10 million? For what? It's still uncomfortable down Transit officials said temperatures on the platforms at Grand Central had fallen 5 to 10 degrees depending on whether the measurement was taken directly underneath the coolers or just a few feet away In other words the temperature dropped from a stifling 102 degrees to a crisp 97 The machines spew cool air partly by tapping into a refrigeration system already in place at Grand i i i i 'i i NEWSDAY THURSDAY JULY 27 2000 1 pf tf grpsp tfie breeze.