3 KILLED AND 2 ARE WOUNDED ABOVE BUSY MIDTOWN BLOCK

Gunmen shot five people in the head, killing three, in a railroad
flat above the Carnegie Delicatessen in Midtown last evening as
tourists and office workers crowded the streets below. The police
said the execution-style killings resulted from a dispute over drugs.

People outside scurried for cover into nearby businesses after
hearing shots around 7:30 p.m., and police officers in riot gear
quickly descended on the block of Seventh Avenue between 54th and
55th Streets, closing it to traffic and scouring the area for the
killers and evidence. Crowds quickly massed behind police lines
around the deli, a New York institution, once a haunt for comics and
Broadway actors but now mostly a tourist stop.

Police officials said people in the apartment at 854 Seventh Avenue
had been selling marijuana, and a sizable amount of the drug was
found there. The killers were let in by the people inside, including
a woman who lived there, the police said.

"There was a dispute in the apartment over money and marijuana,"
Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik told reporters at the scene.
"Some of the people in the apartment were duct-taped and held down
and then shot."

The bodies of two men were found in the living room of the
fifth-floor apartment, behind the pink front door. Their hands,
fastened with the duct tape, were behind their backs. Three of the
victims were apparently shot elsewhere in the apartment, the police
said. All five victims, who appeared to be in their late 20's or
early 30's, had head wounds, Mr. Kerik said.

A woman later died at New York Weill Cornell Center, a hospital
spokeswoman said. Another woman was in serious but stable condition
at Bellevue Hospital Center, and the fifth victim, a man whom the
police encountered running down the apartment's stairs when they
arrived, was lightly wounded, apparently grazed by a bullet. He was
being treated at the Manhattan campus of St. Vincent Catholic Medical
Centers, a spokesman said.

The police did not immediately identify the victims of the shooting,
which took place shortly before curtains were going up in Midtown's
theaters.

Teenagers who live in the neighborhood said in interviews that the
building was known as a place to buy marijuana.

Witnesses reported seeing two men flee from the building's entrance,
to the left of the deli. Dozens of officers poured into the area to
search doorways, a nearby subway station and the streets. But no
suspects were arrested and no weapons were found in the hours after
the shooting, the police said.

Officers peered into trash bins with flashlights, looking for
evidence, and other officers trained video cameras on the crowd of
onlookers.

The assailants were believed to have fled the area, they said. There
was no sign of forced entry through the apartment, No. 9.

"We heard shots. It sounded like firecrackers," said Vinny
Tartagliano, who lives at 56th Street and Eighth Avenue and works at
Chase Manhattan Bank. He said he was leaving a delicatessen across
the street, the Ben Ash, when he heard four or five shots.

"It was dark, and we couldn't see anything," he said. "A police car
had just passed by and slammed on its brakes at 54th Street and then
turned around and went to the deli." Patrons leaving the Ben Ash ran
back inside for cover, he said.

The officers ran upstairs into the cream-colored brick building and
then other officers in plain clothes followed, he said. "It was a
mess. People were running out onto the street from all the
restaurants and stores. It seemed like even if the shooter was still
there, he could have gotten away in the mess."

Mr. Tartagliano said he saw two women taken from the building, one in
a neck brace, both on stretchers. After that, a man was brought out
on a stretcher.

John Osborn, 34, who works at an advertising agency on 51st Street,
came out of his office and was heading for the subway when he was
greeted by pandemonium.

"An officer on a police horse was trotting down 51st Street when all
of a sudden his radio blared and the horse reared up," he said.

"The officer did a U-turn right there and galloped at full speed
toward Seventh Avenue, and the crowd just split."

The Carnegie Deli's manager, Dennis Howard, however, said he heard no
shots and learned of the incident only when he was greeted by a
sudden wave of sirens, police officers and teams from the Emergency
Services Unit. Officers then blocked anyone from entering or leaving
the deli.

"We heard sirens coming, then police cars just settled on us," said
Mr. Howard, adding that people were barred from entering or leaving
the deli for about 90 minutes while the police investigated.

"I didn't know we had that many cops in New York," Mr. Howard said.

Waiters at the Carnegie, a 64-year-old temple of pastrami and one of
the best-known delis in the city, have carved up huge meat sandwiches
for three generations.

It is a famous stop on the tourist trail, notorious for its sour
pickles, equally sour waiters and noisy crowds. It also served as a
location for Woody Allen's 1984 movie "Broadway Danny Rose." Comics
like Jackie Mason count it as a favorite.

The deli and 10 upstairs apartments, most of which are
rent-controlled, are owned by the 854 Carnegie Real Estate
Corporation. Milton Parker is the corporation's president.