Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 48

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Alexander's) Store hours: Warehouse Valley Manhasset Stream 1506 Green No. Blvd. Acres (just (516) east 791-1385 of Lord Taylor Sat. 10-6 Monday-Friday Sun. 12-5 10-9 Westbury Country Glen Center (516) 742-2010 VISA Huntington Across from Walt Whitman Mall (516) 673-9009 A collection of fine Lake Grove Loehman's Plaza (516) 588-9788 Use our layaway plan leather fashions for men and women at exceptional prices Now 21 stores in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Stern Tennis Match Will Be Tennis Only When New York radio's bad boy, Howard Stern, takes to the tennis court at Nassau Coliseum next month, the young women standing on the sidelines to retrieve balls won't be topless, as Stern planned.

That's the word from coliseum officials, who said yesterday that Nassau authorities had informed them that such public undress would be illegal. Though Stern known for his raunchy language and conduct on the air said yesterday morning he still was planning to use at least six topless women on the sidelines when he plays his producer in the "U.S. Open Sores Howard Stern" show, coliseum officials said yesterday afternoon that they would not allow it. "He'll do what he has to do to abide by the said Hillary Hartung, director of marketing for the facility. Last Thursday, the controversial disc jockey, who broadcasts each weekday morning on WXRK, auditioned eight or nine women to become topless "ball girls" for the match scheduled for Oct.

7, said Gary Dell'Abate, producer of the morning program. The six who agreed to bare their breasts were hired, said Dell'Abate. Stern said the idea of having bare-breasted women retrieve tennis balls knocked out of play originated from an on-air discussion with Dell'Abate. As the two talked, they agreed that "people aren't going to be satisfied watching tennis, so why don't we get some naked ball girls?" Stern said. Neither Stern nor Dell'Abate could be reached for comment yesterday afternoon after the coliseum said it had been notified that the planned action would be illegal.

But Hartung said coliseum management would not allow the law to be broken during the Oct. 7 show in Uniondale. "I'm sure Mr. Stern is in agreement," Hartung said. Det.

Sgt. Darius Perry, head of the Nassau County Police Department's vice unit, said that Hempstead Town law prohibits topless entertainment. "If there's anything like that going on, there will probably be arrests," Perry said. Hartung said that about 14,000 tickets at $22.50 each have been sold for the Oct. -7 match, which is virtually sold out.

LIRR Assumed Too Much JAMAICA from Page 21 from city-bound commuters. But Levy and other critics were incredulous that the railroad only last year began to do the market research that has shown future ridership growth would come in the form of outbound commuters or travel on the Island. The railroad also presumed that it could always obtain the platform space it would need at Penn Station to handle any increased ridership. Yet those expectations were unrealistic. At the same time the LIRR was increasing its service through the Ronkonkoma electrification and other projects, the other users of Penn Station Amtrak and NJ Transit also were increasing their service.

Moreover, Amtrak owns the terminal. However, only when an agreement was reached with Amtrak last year to build a jointly operated train control center at the terminal was the number of platforms available to each railroad nailed down. And the railroad did not get any more platform space. With no additional space available at Penn Station, speeding trains through Jamaica by reconstructing the station would serve no purpose, the railroad now says, because the trains would just back up outside Penn Station. It was only when the market research was undertaken last year that the railroad learned some hard facts about its ridership.

LIRR spokesman Brian Dolan said, "This was the first in-depth ridership analysis the railroad ever undertook. What that audit revealed was that commuter ridership was decreasing and offpeak or occasional travel was increasing." "What took them so long to wake up?" asked Leonard Braun, regional administrator of the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration, which has refused to fund new LIRR capital projects because of mismanagement of the massive Hillside Maintenance Complex in Queens. "If they had studied demographics and the economic impact that it was going to have on Long Island and the loss of jobs in Manhattan, it would have made a great difference. They could have seen this by reading the.