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Brambles JuryIndicts 4Four youths were indicted on robbery and assault charges in the July 5 ram page in Central Park in w hich six p e rso n s, in clu d in g figure-skating champion Dick Button, were clubbed with baseball bats and hammers.The indictment, announced by M an hattan D istrict A ttorn ey Robert M orgenthau, alleged that the suspects collected weapons from an East 76th St. apartment and entered the park with the d efin ite in ten t o f b e a tin g and robbing people.Charged by the grand jury were Kenneth Straw, 18, o f 421 E. 64th S t., N ich ola s P erri, 17, o f 438 E. 89th St., David H ym an, 18, o f 1571 York A ve., and Donald Hotchkiss, 20, o f 216 E. 85th St.T he v ictim s, w ho in clu d ed several joggers, were ambushed after dusk in the Ram bles area of the park, along the W est 70%u2019 s.The two juvenile suspects, who were arrested July 12, are still facing charges in Family Court but have not been charged in a felony petition.One o f the victim s, surgical technican Reuel Lownes, 39, was walking with a friend following fireworks displays when he was attacked.%u201c T h ey w ere a tta ck in g h im ,%u201d Lownes recalled, %u201c and I tried toYouthsrun off. But 1 was struck from behind. I saw the baseball bat com in g,%u201d but was unable to avoid the blow.The blow , he said, %u201c paralized my leg s,%u201d tum bling him to the ground. Imm ediately, he said, he was %u201c struck again and again on the head. I threw my hands up to protect my head and I w as hit on the hand.%u201dJust before passing out, Lownes said he %u201c felt a hand g o into my back pocket%u201d and rem ove a wallet. He spend a week in the hospital with a skull fracture and broken hand.The indictment marked a major breakthrough in the case, which was believed to have been jeopardized by problem s o f identification caused by poor lighting conditions in the park.The area in which the attack occurred is a popular m eeting place for hom osexuals, and on e o f the su sp e cts a c k n o w le d g e d from a precinct holding cell that the gang thought they were beating up gay men.Each o f the suspects has an arrest record, ranging from minor youthful offenses to a variety o f serious felonies. The new charges contained fn the indictm ent carry a p o s s ib le 25 year ja il term if convicted.Under A CiouriKoch Fires Peter SmithBY JON CINERA high-ranking official in the K och A d m in istra tion re sig n e d M onday night at the request o f the Mayor pending an investigation into the official%u2019 s finances.Peter P. Smith III, Commissioner o f th e D ep artm en t o f G en eral Services (DGS), stepped down after Stanley Lupkin, Commissioner o f the Department o f Investigations, disclosed to the M ayor that he was investigating Smith%u2019 s finances.In making the announcement, th e M ayor stre sse d that th e resig n a tion d oes not rela te to Smith%u2019s perform ance as a Com m issio n e r, bu t rela ted to S m ith %u2019 s fin a n ce s p rior to b e co m in g a Com m issioner. The nature o f the investigation, however, was not disclosed.Jeremiah W alsh, Deputy C om %u00admissioner o f DGS, will serve as acting Com m issioner until a replacement is named.With Smith%u2019 s departure, the city is without a Com m issioner in DGS and the Department o f Real Estate. DGS, form erly called the Municipal Services Administration, manages th e c ity %u2019 s p h y sica l plant and oversees city purchases.Smith is the first high-ranking official in the Koch Administration to resign in the midst o f an investigation. An attorney, he is related to S teph en S m ith, the brother-in-law o f late President John F. Kennedy. He was also the p erson al attorn ey to B rooklyn Congressman Fred Richmond b efore he becam e a Commissioner, and had played an active role in R ich m on d %u2019 s in v estig a tion s into mortgage redlining in Brooklyn.Peter SmithDuryea Denounces Carey%u2019sAssem blym an Perry B. Duryea, the Republican nom inee for G overnor, yesterday called on Gov. Carey to recind his controversial nom ination o f Richard H ongisto as state C om m ission er o f C o rre ctio n s, la b e llin g th e form er C lev ela n d Police Chief an %u201c am ateur.%u201dDuryea charged that H ongisto was %u201c m ore interested in O hio%u2019 s political problem s than in NewYork%u2019s criminal problem s,%u201d referring to H ongisto%u2019 s appearance at a rally d em a n d in g th e reca ll o f Cleveland M ayor Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich had fired Hongisto last March.Duryea cited city Corrections Commissioner William Ciuros, Jr., as a %u201c drastic example o f what enlightened prison management can achieve,%u201d and suggested thatJails BossC iu ros %u201c w ould h a v e m ad e an excellent state Com m issioner o f C orrections.%u201d %u2022%u201c It%u2019 s n ot too la t e ,%u201d D u ryea added. %u201c M r. Carey should do what M r. H ongisto so fervently wanted done in Cleveland%u2014 recall him %u2014 and appoint a true New York professional in his p la ce.%u201dCONTINUEDsew a g e to a p r o c e s s in g plant instead o f to the waters surrounding South Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights.As in the President/Colum bia Street excavation, the city and co n tr a c to r s %u2019 in ten tion s m a y be good, but now the construction of the pollution control plant and co n n e ctin g sew a g e tu n n e ls are. threatening the reviving Vinegar Hill neighborhood adjacent to it in a manner disturbingly sim ilar to the sewer line construction along Columbia Street.The constuction o f the pollution control plant and its accom panying interceptor sewer which will run from the Navy Yard south to Atlantic Avenue began last March with deep pits being dug outside on th e sid ew a lk s o f V in e g a r Hill homes along Plymouth Street to ascertain the strength and location o f these century-old structures%u2019 fo u n d a tio n s. C om m u n ity critics cla im ed th ese pits w e re only recently filled and in the several m on th s th ey w ere o p e n they allowed water to drain into local basem ents and underm ined the very foundations under investigation.Worse still is the necessarydemolition o f a series o f concrete stays on the site o f the proposed sew age treatment site inside the Navy Yard. The concrete stays, which were used to support shops in the past, now must be destroyed if the pollution control plant it to be built.T he d e m o litio n %u2019 s ra ttlin g o f windows and shaking o f walls ca u sed co n sid e ra b le com m u n ity grum bling. But the real problem s started when a 1400 pound explosive blast on June 8 threw concrete fragments onto Hudson Avenue and Plymouth Streets, narrowly missing a group o f Con Ed workers who were installing new conduits in the streets and'pelting neighborhood cars and hom es. The grum %u00adbles quickly grew into a roar. CityRed Hook Sewer Now Shaking Vinegar Hillagencies and private contractors heard it well enough and the blasting was stopped. Now, to %u00adgether with comm unity representatives and local elected officials they are trying to determ ine what can be done.The dilemma is this: to make im provem ents in an old neighborhood without destroying it. Columbia Street was a difficult %u201c problem %u201d for the city and engineers to solve%u2014 and they haven%u2019t yet.The project began in M ay 1975 and on D ecem ber 3, 1975, No. 21President Street, weakened by the open trench construction, collapsed and one occupant was killed. Not long after, construction stopped, 23 b u ild in g s w ere im m ed ia tely evacuated, and the slow seige to resolve financial liability took place while most o f the street died. The project work resum ed, but the dam age was already done.City Environmental Protection A g e n cy co m m issio n e r F ran cis M cArdle insists that the city has lea rn ed from its m istak es on Columbia Street.%u201c The Red Hook Pollution Control Project has had problem s because in fact it%u2019s a project that impacts on a very old neighborhood,%u201d said M cArdle. %u201c But President Street is a lesson well learned. W e have to impact as little as we possibly can on neighborhoods so that these projects are the same for people and property.%u201dRobert Strong, a Hudson Streetresident, couldn%u2019t agree m ore. He was bathing in a third-floor bathroom on June 8 when the last blast h u rled a co n cre te ch un k thatOpen trenches still stand along President Street in Carroll Gardens, testament to sewersolutions not yet found.shattered his bathroom window. Strong calls his part o f Hudson Street the %u201c Alamo%u201d and thinks that the neighborhood and the city will have to take some kind o f stand.%u201c T he m ajor p rob lem is the dynamiting of the concrete stays, which are 50 or 60 feet in the ground and have to be rem oved. On the other hand the insurance com panies won%u2019t touch the buildings because they can%u2019t underpin these buildings, so it would be easier for the city to tunnel through a parking lot than a neighborhood. W e aren%u2019t going aw ay.%u201dM cA rdle indicated that a num ber o f in d ep en d en t con su ltan t e n %u00adgineers %u201c could not give assurances%u201d that the dynamiting could be continued without harming neighborhood buildings, so %u201c alternative techniques%u201d are being considered. But he admits that no other readily available means to destroy the pilings are available.M eanwhile, the city has a $366 million project that has again com e to a halt, something that M cArdle regards as %u201c very tem porary.%u201d\crete pilings to build this plant or we basically don%u2019t have a project,%u201d he said.T he h alt in co n stru ctio n is costing Cleveland W recking C om %u00adpany, the demolition firm, $ 10,000 a day while EPA officials plan to survey area houses and determine what can be done. On building already has been declared unsafe. A ccording to Vinegar Hill resident Gardner Com pton, things aren%u2019t getting any simpler.%u201c It gets more and more com plicated all the tim e,%u201d said Compton.was referring to meetings with the city and the difficulty o f finding engineering and neighborhood solthat will work here. But he could have just as well have been talking about the entire Red Hook Sewer project.August 22,1978, T H E PHOENIX, Page 3