Opening Doors

It was three unlikely men - two mobsters and a northeast Pennsylvania contractor - who finally opened the door for law enforcement to get inside the Scarfo mob for the first time. The mobsters, Nicholas "Nicky Crow" Caramandi, and Thomas "Tommy Del" DelGiorno, who was Caramandi's immediate mob boss, had been marked for execution by Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo. Caramandi, 54, yesterday was fined $10,000 and given an eight-year sentence with credit for the 33 months he has been cooperating.

Asked the other day if he thought Whitney Houston had a movie career ahead of her, a studio executive let loose with a howl of laughter. "Wait a minute," he said, "don't hit me with too much here. I'm still in shock that this is a $100 million dollar movie!' " He's hardly alone. Before its Nov. 25 release, many had written off The Bodyguard, a romantic thriller starring Kevin Costner and Houston in her acting debut. "We thought it would make $30 million if they were lucky," says one industry marketing source.

The North Penn-Souderton Area Sports Hall of Fame membership will grow by eight when induction ceremonies are held May 7. Joining the elite group will be Rick Carroll, Frank Clause, Clarence Didden, Charlie Hahl, Cloyd "Bucky" Price, Mary Lou Fretz Roush, Gene Weidemoyer and Harry Lane. Carroll was the North Penn swim coach for 17 years and coached 19 all-Americans before retiring in 1988. Price coached a total of 26 years at Souderton: football, girls' basketball, golf and softball.

If it seemed as if Harrah's Chester Casino and Racetrack wasn't quite ready for prime time yesterday, well, the Delaware Valley's newest entertainment venue isn't pretending to be anything but a work in progress. "This is Phase One of a very big project, and that project is to bring a complete entertainment experience to Chester and Delaware County," said Vince Donlevie, executive vice president and general manager of the track. But the curtains went up as scheduled on the track's betting windows shortly after the lunch hour yesterday, and in the blink of a mile dash around a rounded oval later, Hall of Fame harness driver Catello "Cat" Manzi brought home Silver Flash, who went off at 2-to-1 and became the first winner in Harrah's Chester history.

FORT MOSE: COLONIAL AMERICA'S BLACK FORTRESS OF FREEDOM. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 33rd & Spruce streets. Through April 25. Donation: adults, $5; students and senior adults, $2.50; children under 6, free. Info: 215-898-4000. Quick . . . name the first legally sanctioned free black community in the United States. Give up? The answer to that $64,000 question is revealed by a traveling exhibition currently making a stopover at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology - "Fort Mose: Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom.

Cassie Jones didn't stand on ceremony. "Grandmom always had an open door," said Renee Wearing, a granddaughter. "She just fed everybody who came to the door. . . "There was this one woman who would just come in and eat right out of the pot. " To hear Wearing describe her grandmother's sumptuous soul-food cooking - from meats and greens to cakes, cornbread and homemade rolls - it was easy to understand why. The food was just too darn good to wait for a plate. Cassie Jones, a retired domestic worker and devoted churchwoman who dedicated her life to her family, died of heart failure Sunday.

"Well, it was a pretty radical departure from what I'd been doing. I . . . " Mario Van Peebles suddenly paused. He was about to smack the softball question about his new movie through the Four Seasons Hotel window when something clicked. "Let me ask you this before we get too heavy," he says, then asks if the Daily News is an African-American newspaper. No, he's told, but it's read by many minorities. With the speed of an android, which he happens to play in his new movie, "Solo," Van Peebles loads the info and reworks his answer to match the demographics: He's talking to black folks.

Steve Elkington called it the round of his life. Good thing, too. He needed every bit of it, and then some. The 32-year-old Australian carved out a bogeyless, 7-under-par 64 yesterday at defenseless Riviera Country Club in the final round of the PGA Championship. All that got him was a sudden-death playoff with Scotland's Colin Montgomerie, who closed with three birdies for a neat 65 of his own. So Elkington went back to the par-4 18th, one of golf's most treacherous finishing holes, and slam-dunked a 20-foot birdie putt to claim his first major victory.

It's showtime for lobbyists in the capital. Time to prowl the halls of the Capitol, grab a minute with a passing lawmaker, stir up the grass-roots pressure and hope that it's the other guy who gets burned by spending cuts or tax increases. "This is the time to revitalize every friendship you ever had, because you're going to need it," said veteran Washington lobbyist Howard Marlowe. Congressional committees yesterday began drafting the bills needed to specify exactly what spending reductions and tax increases will be needed to achieve a $40 billion deficit reduction for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. "It's not a zoo. It's not a circus.

A Bucks County judge has overturned a decision last year by the New Britain Township Zoning Hearing Board that blocked a controversial drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation facility in the township. Judge Michael J. Kane said Friday that the township must grant Gerald Schatz a special exception to lease a 17.8-acre site at Old Iron Hill and Ferry Roads for the facility. The property, which abuts Doylestown Township, is zoned for institutional use. Schatz, a Fort Washington resident, has planned to lease the property to Recovery Centers of America Inc. for a treatment center for adolescents.