Guardian Angel warns managers of city's uncertain future.

Guardian Angels founder and radio personality Curtis. Sliwa was the guest speaker at the monthly luncheon of the Institute of Real Estate Managers Wednesday. Perhaps surprisingly, the outspoken and defiantly un-P.C. Sliwa succeeded in molding his message to the 50 people in the audience, discussing the recent history of and challenges facing New York City.

Sliwa, a Brooklyn native who founded the Angels in 1980, related some of the history of the organization that brought him notoriety, and put the group's role in the perspective of Rudolph Guiliani's New York. Yes, he said, the Angels are less of a presence on New York's subways than in their heyday; today their mission takes them into schools and community organizations where they offer peer mentoring and leadership, and to the web, where "Cyber-Angels" track down pedophiles, stalkers and scammers. The street Angels in New York can mostly be found patrolling neighborhood parks and housing projects, and, more remarkably, overseas, where 26 satellite chapters keeps the streets of Tokyo, London, Hamburg and Berlin safe for the citizens of those cities.

The muted presence of the Angels for average New Yorkers does not diminish Sliwa's influence: he co-hosts the morning drive radio program on WABC with his former nemesis, civil rights attorney Ronald Kuby. In fact, most of the questions directed to Sliwa during the opening cocktail reception were clearly from fans of the program.

But Real Estate Managers, as a rule, like to hear about real estate, and it was Sliwa's perspective on the New York he grew up in versus the city today that offered insight into the challenges facing the industry.

If there is anyone bemoaning the coming end to the Guiliani administration, it is Sliwa. This mayor was among the first to recognize the Angels as a force for good, after then-Mayor Edward Koch denounced them as "vigilantes." And when Guiliani succeeded Mayor David Dinkins, "He was even better than advertised."

It is precisely the quality-of-life changes implemented by Guiliani that made the city worth investing in again after it was dismantled by mayors from John Lindsay through Abe Beame through Dinkins. In fact, he seemed to say, thank Guiliani for the lack of Angels on the IRT.

"But we've only put a cap on the problem," Sliwa warned. "An average student can barely read, and he passes his criminality on to his peers. We have more youth locked up than ever, but there's no alternative outlet."

He added that when he started the Angels, his work with "troubled young people" focused on 15- to 24-year-olds. Now the range is eight to 15.

"An d Mayor Guiliani hasn't addressed this, but then that's not really his forte.

The next mayor has his work cut out for him, he warned, and he saw nobody among the presumed crop of candidates who could pick up the Guiliani mantel.

"Not Mark Green, not Alan Hevesi, not Freddy Ferrer, not Al Sharpton. Certainly not [Michael] Bloomburg, who probably couldn't even eat a dirty water dog at Coney Island."

The key to prolonging New York's economic boom, he promised, was to continue making the city a place employers wanted to bring their people, and to continue making the city a welcoming place to live. And it all starts with the schools.

The next mayor must learn from John Lindsay's mistakes, he said. Sliwa himself graduated from the city's public schools after amicably being encouraged to leave St. Mathew's Elementary School in Canarsie. As a fourth grader in parochial school, the nuns suggested to his parents that the precocious Sliwa would be better served in a school with the resources to encourage his gifts. Soon the found himself in a classroom with easels and "25 Jewish kids and an Italian"

But he said he watched those other kids, and when the time came to choose between following them to the library after lass or to the street corner he knew best, he chose the library.

And then came Lindsay. John Lindsay, the Harvard-educated New Liberal mayor who died last month, had the idea that neighborhood schools discouraged the city from fulfilling its melting pot mandate. It was the late 1960s, and decentralization (read: desegregation) was the buzzword.

"I remember my parents and grandparents and everyone in the neighborhood at the community center listening to some deputy mayor explaining it to us, while everybody in the crowd, most of whom spoke almost no English, were asking why they had bothered to get out of Brownsville in the first place." Soon the homes they had invested in to build up equity so they could leave it to their children who would leave it to their grandchildren bore "For Sale" signs, and the phenomenon of White Flight had begun.

"What John Lindsay did was take away the value of public education. Soon multiculturalism and teaching our kids Swahili became more important than the values I had learned."

The next mayor, he warned, had to focus on improving education while not diluting the quality-of-life initiatives Giuliani had fought for. And the man he sees as having the best answers is Herman Badillo, Koch's old housing commissioner.

"Besides favoring education and having experience with housing, he knows where the bodies are buried."

In other IREM news, the luncheon served as a forum for organizational announcements.

* Zarmeen Khan was the recipient of the Greater New York IREM Chapter 26 George M. Brooker Minority Book Scholarship Award.

* Jose Vasquez was the recipient of the Greater New York IREM Chapter 26 George M. Brooker Minority Scholarship Award.

* Jeffrey Block received the National IREM Paul H. Rittle Sr. Memorial Scholarship.

* Jeffrey Klarfeld received his CPM (Certified Property Manager) designation and was sworn in by National IREM representative Gail P. Duke.

Fields featured at luncheon

Assemblyman Scott Stringer and Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields are among the panel of experts who will address the a fordable housing crisis at a conference sponsored by Business, Labor & Community Coalition BLCC) Feb. 8, 8:30 to 10 a.m. The conference will be held at the New York Joint Boar of Union of Need e Trades Industrial Textile Employees ITE), 31 West 15th Street.

"The lack of affordable housing in New York City is reaching epidemic proportions which affect every economic class including the wealthy," said Maurice Paprin, chairman of the BLCC, a leading advocacy group in the city. "As more middle income New Yorkers leave the city because of a lack of affordable housing, the tax base will shrink accordingly. This will eventually result in higher taxes for those who remain here."

According to Paprin, housing is the most critical factor in attracting employees to the city's workforce and retaining them. "If employees cannot be attracted and retained in New York, corporations will also be more likely to relocate, which will further result in eroding our tax base," said Paprin.

To attend the conference, RSVP by calling BLCC at 6858848, or faxing at 685-8970. Cost of admission is a $5 contribution at the door.