DIED. Hortense Gabel, 77, former New York State Supreme Court justice and prominent social reformer; in New York City. Following World War II, Gabel helped lead the fight against racial discrimination in housing. In 1988 she was acquitted on charges of lowering alimony and child-support payments of the boyfriend of Bess Myerson, once the city's cultural-affairs commissioner, in exchange for Myerson's hiring of her daughter Sukhreet Gabel.