Recently a friend who had been spending many extra hours at work told me that he hadn't heard about Frank Sinatra's death until the next night, when he saw that the Empire State Building was lighted up in blue and asked someone why. Those 1,336 blue lights became, for him, a sort of news report.

It occurred to me that it might be nice to take a break from nightly newscasts and see if I could determine what the news was solely by looking at the lights. It would be a bit like the old system of relying on a town crier.

The first day that I tried to cipher out the news by the lights, they were yellow. That was their usual color, but I wondered if maybe there was a special purpose to it on that particular night:

* It was the anniversary of the Edsel, America's most famous lemon.

* The building was forecasting the next day's sunny weather.

* Time was running out to place an ad in the yellow pages.

Judging from the next morning's papers, it had simply been a slow news day. The lights merely signified the absence, rather than the presence, of colorful news.

But I kept at it. Two nights later, the lights were red, white and blue. I couldn't imagine what had inspired that, since Memorial Day was a week away. So I put on my thinking cap again:

* There was a wine and blue-cheese tasting going on inside the building.

* The scorching weather of that week had made employees remember the Astro Pops they enjoyed in childhood.

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* They were practicing for the Fourth of July.

A call to the building's public relations department revealed that the patriotic display was in observance of three events: Armed Forces Day, Fleet Week and Memorial Day. No Astro Pops involved.

I gave the experiment one more try. Near the end of the month, the building was lighted in green. I knew of no singer known as ''Ol' Green Eyes.'' But a few alternatives came to mind:

* It was in appreciation of ''Peter Pan,'' the only musical ever made that is not currently in revival on Broadway.

* The building got confused and thought it was a tree.

* They were filming a special scene for ''Godzilla II.''

* The Girl Scouts were gearing up to hawk mint cookies again.

Actually, No. 2 wasn't far from the truth. A building spokeswoman said the lights were meant to celebrate the Museum of Natural History's new Biodiversity Center.

Now why didn't I know that?

So I'm back to getting my news from television and the papers. But I'll keep admiring the view across the water -- even if I'm not sure what it's telling me.

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