Newsday from New York, New York • 6

The Author Blows Up Over No Spare Air ED LOWE old pump on the outside wall shot Could Ernesto have been right? Three months ago my old friend Ernesto from Selden told me that air had all but disappeared from Long Island "There is no air on Long he said all gone all used I laughed and didn't believe He said that he and a friend were driving around Mineola after dark one night when a truck driver leaned out the truck window and told him that he needed air in his right front tire Ernesto thanked the truck driver and began looking around for a gas station with an air pump The newspaper had run stories and editorials in the summer about how Hempstead Town had passed a law requiring service stations to have compressed air for tires and this knowledge comforted Ernesto "In he said "there is no such law and there is no air I have to go all the way from Selden to Coram for air I must pass 20 gas stations along Continued on Page 21 I have slow leak io4he right front tire and no spare in the trunk 1 would get the tire fixed and purchase a new spare bul that would involve a simple act of initiative and I am a dedicated procrastinator ea-ciaUy when it comes to matters automotive I never managed to get the car inspected in th month designated by the hole punched in the inspection sticker for example I have been told foui times this week that my right front head-' lamp is out I drove thousands of other motorists bananas all summer long (until after the inspection sticker expired) by operating with no blink- ere 1 usually put off buying gasoline until miles aftei the needle has fallen past and is on its way past the reserve mark In fact Just yesterday bought 108 gallons of gasoline for a ear with an 11-gallon tank reserve gallon included And finally in the days when I bothered to use snow tires I never took them off but rode them down to drag slicks in time for the following winter's blizzards Clearly one of the reasons for this kind of behavior is an undisguised loathing for the automobile and all its works But I have also always eqjoyed the 'security that comes from living in an area where the car is so essential to survival that automotive care and repair is one of the major industries' We are surrounded by service stations have been for years and while it can be argued that they are ugly to look at they sure were pretty when I had a hairline crack in my distributor cap on a rainy night in-December and the old service station owner in Ronkon-koma worked relentlessly at getting me back on the road warning me not to take my foot off the accelerator for one second until I got back to Amityville But now all I want is air The air is gone from Norm and Sunoco station The air pump at the Shell Station near Southern State Parkway has no hose The Texaco station has an Airport Mural to Be Restored 1940 to 1944 The painting in the popular social realism style of the time depicts the history of attempt to fly and includes the Greek myth of Daedalus some Leonardo da-Vinci sketches for flying machines and the Wright brothers -When the then-newly-formed Fort Authority of New York and New Jersey took over operation of the airport IiaGuardia- Airport CUPI) In the 1940s it took four years for artist James Brooks to punt a 235-foot-long 12-foot-high mural In the 1950s it took just a few days for workers to lug their stepladders and brushes into the terminal and paint over the mural with a drab institutional green Undoing the damage will take about a year Laurence Rockefeller and DeWitt Wallace the founder of Digest have put up matching funds for the 575000 restoration of the Brooks mural at the Marine Air Terminal building officials said yesterday Brooks now 72 worked on the mural at the terminal which serves private and corporate aircraft from from the city four coats of green paint were slapped over the muni as part of a genual "clean-up program "No one told me they were going to paint it Brooks said in a telephone interview yesterday 1 heard about it after it happened A friend flew in to visit me and he asked why my painting had been covered over It was the first I heard of it When four Rockefeller Art Left to Public NEW8DAY FRDAY FEBRUARY 2 1978 years of a life work is destroyed it affects him kind of a criminal thing in a sense not to let him Brooks who had been hired under the Depression-era Works Project Administration to paint the mural he was uncertain of wire it had been obscured "Nobody cared It was simply WPA work and that was considered expendable just Brooks said A Reader's Digest spokesman said that Rockefeller and Wallace were splitting half the cost of the restoration project with the Port Authority paying the remainder The Port Authority is ready to sign a contract with a restorer "within two a spokesman said He declined to release the mtm of the restorer until the contract was signed The a fresco is in the rotunda of the Art Deco-style terminal building Brooks said that he painted the mural on Belgian linn to the wall with white lead and varnish A campaign to have the painting re stored was launched about a year ago by Geoffery Arend the publisher of Air Cargo News and Air World Inter- line News who had photographs at it displayed in the terminal building: "He felt be a lot of hotshots coming through on their own planes who might be interested in contribut- tag to the Brooks said Brooks would not evaluate the work 1 like he said adding "My work has become more He said that he had been selected for the airport job after completing a large mural at a public building in Woodside that since has been torn down Born in St' Louis Brooks to New York City at the age of 19 He and his wife the painter Charlotte maintain homes in Manhattan and East Hampton By Amei Wallach Newsday Cultural Affairs Specialist Nelson Rockefeller had decided that heavy inheritance taxes meant that he leave most of his multimillion-dollar art collection to his wife and children But in a sense the art works will be staying in the fam-The share of mqjor pieces is to go to the Museum Modern Art which his mother helped found and to the new Metropolitan Museum of Art wing of primitive art which is named for late son Hugh Morrow long-time press secretary said yesterday that the MOMA which Abby Aldrich Rockefeller helped form 60 years ago and the Mefs -Rockefeller Wing of Primitive Art would be the beneficiaries I of paintingm and objects from collection In 1974 during Congressional hearings on his confirmation for the vice presidency Rockefeller put the value of his art silver and porcelain at 52 per cent of his $626 "Hi" in net assets Knee then art prices have skyrocketed The MOMA described its 1969 exhibit of Twentieth Century Art from the Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller as "one of the most glorious ever assembled At that time then-Gov Rockefeller released plans to leave many of the paintings including seven by Picasso to the museum collection included everything from American folk art to Southeast Asian sculpture to European and Chinese porcelains to contemporary American and European paintings The primitive art has been promised to the Metropolitan Museum where the Michael Rockefel I i a- ler helped found A few months before his death Rockefeller said that "with prices what they are and the heavy tax laws you can -no longer afford to leave them art to your i-vi vo iP Pbsu Rockefeller carries a reproduction of one of the pieces to his collection a hand-hammered copper racehorse weathenrane 7 f' 1 lj.