There are some ideas that surface year after year, sometimes with results, often just to fade from sight and reappear a few years later. Such an idea is that of a Manhasset Youth Center. Virtually everyone is in agreement that such a center is needed. Most communities have some version of a youth center, whether a program such as "Levels" at the Great Neck Library or the youth center in Port Washington at the Landmark on Main Street. Manhasset had its Ironworks and there have been many efforts that seemed promising and then fizzled.

This time it looks as though the community, led by a determined and dedicated committee, might just pull it off.

The good news is that space on Plandome Road will be made available for young people's activities on weekends, thanks to Nassau County. What is needed is what is always needed--time and money. We met with Charlie Gueli, chairman of the committee, and with Robert Adipietro, the Youth Center's director. The two have a happy combination of pragmaticism and optimism. They know why such programs have not succeeded in the past and they know that there are programs which have succeeded and continue to succeed. We urge all of Manhasset to get behind this effort. As to whether the teenagers will take advantage of such a center, we refer our readers to Field of Dreams . "Build it and they will come."

E.F.B.