European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 20, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Is Dave Aldio ruins of Athens glorious past lie next to and below the modern City which is choked by buses cars and dirty air. Subway workers digging up Athens past by the los Angeles times construction of a $2.8 billion subway in Athens Greece is imposing a delicate and painful balance Between the demands of modern Urban life and the legacies of history. Metro excavations have revealed remains of the splendid Creek past in a now ramshackle capital literally gasping for breath. Workers have opened archaeological digs the size of 22 football Fields along major streets in the heart of the City. Artefacts in dazzling array from toys to Sarcophagi to sexy bedroom lamps Are being recovered As part of the largest Effort Ever undertaken to mine and Rescue the underground treasures of a Metropolis whose majesty beckons across 25 centuries. The scale is indescribable. In pieces there Are hundreds of thousands. In bulk tons. We Are talking Large trucks and heavy cranes said William c. Stead the american Engineer overseeing metro construction. Scholars will be writing their theses on this material 25 years from  the bad news is that Large numbers of newly seen landmarks from Athens past Walls foundations Wells aqueducts will be bulldozed in another few months to keep metro construction on schedule. Not everybody is sure that there will be time to fully digest the trove. One recent morning a worker digging a few feet beneath Street level near syntax a or Constitution Square uncovered a broken pocketbook sized Terra Cotta Brick bearing the image of two prancing panthers. Archaeologist Costas saris hustled Over. A Mold from a Metal working shop about the time of Christ he told a visitor above the rasp of a no. 136 bus trapped in traffic a few Yards away before the National parliament. To the fury of motorists the metro digs have institutionalized gridlock since tunnelling began in Earnest in november 1992. The panthers duly documented now lie in one of the fast growing artefact warehouses of the greek cd Itu re ministry. They will be studied eventually. There is no time for that sort of scholarly luxury right now. Usually we Don t excavate All year a site this size would normally keep us bus for Many years. But we have Only six months. Wish we had t found so much.1 archaeologist Costas saris round so Winter offers a Chance to study and to reflect. Here we Don t have that Chance said saris one of a dozen archaeologists overseeing workers at what will become the. Metro s biggest station. A site this size would normally keep us Busy for Many years. But we have Only six months. I wish we had t found so  Stead who ran san Francisco s municipal railway for five years is himself a trained archaeologist. He sympathizes with the yearning to linger Over the past. But time is Money in this Case european Money nearly $600,000 for every Day of delay. Slow archaeology is not necessarily Good and fast archaeology is not necessarily bad said Stead chief of a Bechtel International team providing management and engineering services to the greek company responsible for the  planned for completion in 1997, the project is already More than one year behind schedule because of the archaeology. Now Stead said Athens must avoid the mistakes of Rome where standoffs Between builders and Conse Ryers repeatedly delayed subway construction. Unfortunately features like Wells Walls and foundations will be destroyed. Once they Are measured and recorded Well have to bulldoze them out of the Way Stead said. But the Glass is also half full. Except for the metro these Sites would never have been excavated to begin with classical Athens was the most wondrous City on Earth in the fifth Century  modern Athens is the most polluted and choked capital in the european Union 12th of 12 in livability and efficiency by most reckoning. It is easy to see Why in 1961, there were 39,000 cars in Athens where a third of greeks live. Today there Are 1.4 million cars in a metropolitan area with almost 3.5 million people. Despite draconian traffic restrictions Little moves downtown in the historic commercial financial and governmental heart of Greece. Metro to the Rescue planners say that by Century s end it could be carrying 450,000 passengers a Day reducing daily Auto trips by 250,000 and the City s exhaust pollution by 35 percent. There s a lot of scepticism. But even with fences two feet from buildings and businesses i think we Are gradually winning Public acceptance for the idea of Short term pain for Long term gain said William g. Margaritis a spokesman for the project. Short subject Britain has homeless and a housing glut by the associated press just up the Road from the houses of parliament and opposite new Scotland Yard a group of homeless people has defied the Law by taking Over an empty apartment building. This place has been empty for 18 years and yet the government is still leaving people on the streets rather than open up places like this said sooty one of 80 squatters living in artillery mansions a 400-apartment Complex. A High court last week granted the owners an eviction order though he said he sympathized with the plight of the occupiers. The Saga of squat land Yard As the newspapers Call it dramatizes the fact that Britain has far More empty Homes than homeless people and the difficulties of getting the two together. Shelter a National organization campaigning for the welfare of the homeless estimates that 8,600 people Are sleeping on British streets dozens of them near artillery mansions where they beg outside Westminster Cathedral but the empty Homes Agency reported april in that there Are 160,046 empty Homes in greater London alone and that 5 percent of the nation s dwellings Are vacant. Those sleeping on the streets Are just a Small part of the problem. In the first half of 1993, 70,530 families qualified As being homeless by local government councils shelter said. Many Are temporarily housed at great expense in bed and breakfast accommodations or hostels. But Ian Fang 33, another artillery mansions squatter said he in t eligible for government housing because he is a single male. The owners of artillery mansions a consortium called great Bear ltd., were asked to let the homeless use the building until it came up for redevelopment but rejected the idea As impractical. Nationwide there Are 864,000 empty Homes 85 percent of them privately owned. Many Are apartments Over shops owned by retailers who Only use the ground floor for business. Several local authorities Are trying to match the homeless with empty Homes. The Borough Council in Reading 28 Miles West of London set up a Telephone hot line and asked people to report empty properties. Then officials tracked Down the owners and asked them to consider leasing to a housing association which would then fill the Home with a family. Not a homeless Man covers up in London s Soho District. Wednesday april 20. 1994 the stars and stripes 19