MANHATTAN Realtor William Zeckendorf, who sold the site for the U.N., plans to buy two of New York's most famous skyscrapers: the 77-story Chrysler Building, second tallest building in the world; and the 33-story Graybar Building, which houses many of Manhattan's big Madison Avenue ad agencies. Price: $70 million (v. the original construction cost of some $60 million). Major part of the financing will probably come in a $40 million mortgage from Equitable Life.

STEEL output figures for May may top the alltime monthly record of 10 million tons set in March. Demand is so strong that June and July operations are expected to hold at 100% of theoretical capacity or better, and output for the year, barring a strike, should come close to 110 million tons, up 18% from 1952. Despite predictions of balanced supply & demand by year-end, there has been no letup in orders.

SEC may soon be short of a working quorum because of a patronage squabble. Philadelphia Lawyer Ralph Demmler is slated to become chairman, but Senate approval of his appointment has been held up by Pennsylvania's Senator Ed Martin, who is irked because Ike's aides neglected to check with him. Meanwhile, Commissioner Richard McEntire and Chairman Donald Cook are ready to step down, leaving only two commissioners--not enough, under law, to run SEC. Eisenhower's choices to fill the gaps: Democrat Andrew Jackson Goodwin, an Alabama banker, and J. Sinclair Armstrong, a Chicago lawyer.

LOCKHEED'S President Robert Gross is again dickering with Howard Hughes for the sale of Hughes Aircraft Co., a leading U.S. maker of electronic equipment for fighter planes, to Lockheed. The deal has been off & on for weeks, with price the chief stumbling block.

BROWN Shoes ("Buster Browns"), having bought up two competitors in the past month, will soon take over Regal Shoe under an agreement reached with Regal stockholders last week. It is the latest in a series of merger deals in the shoe industry stemming from the fear of tough competition ahead and higher costs resulting from rising prices for top-grade hides.

CBS, which has long led NBC in radio billings, has taken the lead in TV. With $8,750,000 new business in a month (from Prudential Insurance, Chrysler, G.E., etc.), CBS-TV is now 28% ahead of NBCTV.

TO get ready for a big organizing drive, the C.I.O. is cutting its staff of regional directors from 54 to 13, thus freeing many "porkchoppers" (unionese for bureaucrats) for the all-out campaign. C.I.O. Boss Walter Reuther thinks that the recent practice of going after small companies first, in trying to organize an industry, is wrong. He aims to hit the big ones and expects the little ones to fall in line. Prime target: the chemical industry, and specifically, Du Pont, in which 75% of the employees belong to independent (company) unions.

HUDSON will have a sports car to compete with Chevrolet's racy "Corvette." Price: around $3,000.

SHERATON Corp.'s President Ernest Henderson, who buys and sells hotels so fast that he is never quite sure how many he owns, bought control of two more: Washington's 300-room Carlton, a monument to old-fashioned elegance, and the 1,300-room Wardman Park, biggest in the capital. Price, including an interest in an apartment house and an office building: $4,000,000.

DAVID DUBINSKY'S International Ladies Garment Workers Union reported assets of $166 million, up $56 million in three years. When Dubinsky took over 21 years ago, the union was $750,000 in debt.

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