N.Y. Loves Di--Both Uptown and Downtown

Britain’s Princess Diana saw an American version of a Tale of Two Cities today, meeting the poor and homeless on Manhattan’s Lower East Side before hurrying back uptown to the world’s fanciest toy store.

But wherever Diana went, she received a royal welcome, greeted by hundreds of cheering spectators eager to get a glimpse of the princess on her first official visit to New York.

“We want Princess Di,” jubilant first graders chanted as Diana arrived at the historic Henry Street Settlement on the impoverished Lower East Side for a tour led by the Empire State’s first lady, Matilda Cuomo.

Scores of people leaned out of tenement windows, showering the Princess of Wales with best wishes while scores of law enforcement officers, including police sharpshooters crouched on rooftops, blanketed the area under tight security.

For nearly an hour, Diana met with homeless mothers and their children at the settlement, which was opened in 1893 to aid the immigrant poor.

Theather Mitchell, 43, a former homeless mother of four who works as a counselor at the settlement, urged people not to be cynical about the tour by the princess, who is staying in an $1,800-a-night suite at the British-owned Plaza Athenee.

“She’ll help people realize that the homeless are not derelicts,” Mitchell said.

Next stop on the princess’ whirlwind visit to the Big Apple was a tour of an entirely different sort at the world-famous toy emporium, F.A.O. Schwarz, on Fifth Avenue.

Smiling, but looking distracted as she was lectured on a new line of high-priced British toys, Diana did her best to ignore swarms of frustrated reporters and television news cameras eager to get some comment from the royal visitor.