What was going on when I was born?

When Christopher Whittle and Phillip Moffitt bought languishing Esquire magazine two years ago, one of the last decrees of the outgoing regime was that its offices be moved to 2 Park Avenue. Thus the day the jaunty young Tennesseans (they were barely into their 30's) took charge, Esquire was literally a maze of unpacked boxes. The phones were on the blink. Articles were in such scarce supply that Mr. Moffitt was forced to comb through the reject pile. Out came some easy-to-forget pieces. Into print they went. ''It was a fitting beginning,'' Mr. Whittle smiles. The publishing industry scoffed. ''I figured that, in no more than six months,'' recalls one publisher, ''the Southern boys would rue the day they first heard of Esquire. The very name would cause them to scream in their sleep.''

It was one of those moments a legislative leader dreads: Warren M. Anderson, leader of the Senate's Republican majority, was committed to passing his version of a bill to aid mass transit, and the bill was going down to defeat. Senator Anderson conferred hastily with his counsel, John F. Haggerty. Mr. Haggerty pointed his finger at one Republican Senator, then another, and they quickly changed their votes from the negative to the affirmative. The bill was still one vote short of passage when Mr. Haggerty's gaze fixed on Senator Martin S. Auer, a Syracuse Republican. Senator Auer rose from his red leather chair. ''Mr. President,'' he said, ''it has been called to my attention that there is $1.6 million in there for central transportation. Due to that, I am going to change my vote to yes.'' The measure passed.

The employees of Continental Air Lines announced a proposal today to purchase 51 percent of Continental's stock to prevent a takeover of the carrier by Texas International Airlines. The employees would pay about $185 million. The purchase, which would be made through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, with management's approval, would make Continental the nation's first employee-owned airline. Under the plan, Continental would issue 15.4 million new shares of stock, doubling the number of its existing shares and diluting Texas International's current 48.5 percent stake. The company is authorized in its bylaws to issue as many as 50 million new shares.

A bipartisan alternative to the Administration tax bill was outlined by Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The proposal suggested a cut in the top tax rate to 50 percent from 70 percent, an increase in the standard deduction and relief from the so-called marriage penalty. (Page A1.) Beryl W. Sprinkel accused the Fed of interfering with the slowing of the money supply growth. Comments by the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs to a Congressional panel may mean that the Reagan Administration may closely monitor the Fed in months to come, analysts said. (D1.)

In early June, the Western Bancorporation will change its name to the First Interstate Bancorporation. And its 21 banks in 11 Western states will officially become units of the First Interstate Bank, part of a $32 billion financial organization with nearly 900 offices in 450 communities in the West. If interstate banking is inevitable, as bankers seem to believe, then Western Bancorp intends to be the first. The largest of six multistate banking companies, Western Bancorp's banks, which had been part of the Bank of America, were allowed to remain as a unit after the 1956 Bank Holding Company Act blocked further interstate expansion. That law was apparently passed to prevent A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of America, from building a national bank empire.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Jane Geniesse is a journalist and novelist. BY JANE GENIESSE SHE is 85 years old, snowy-haired and has wonderful stories to tell. She lives surrounded by a splendor of fine 18th-century French furniture, amassed when she was mistress of Mereville, one of the great chateaus of France. For 45 years she has run a thriving interior-decorating business. Her name is Sarah Hunter Kelly - and the chances are you have never heard of her. ''My clients really wouldn't like it if I talked about them,'' said Mrs. Kelly, smiling but firm, over lunch served on Sevres china in a mostly Louis XVI dining room. ''Some have been with me for 40 years and none of them want publicity.'' But if Mrs. Kelly won't discuss the Cannons, Wetherills, Reynoldses, Fahnestocks and other well-known families, many of them from New York, who have been her clients, admirers have no such reticence in discussing her.

Evangeline Gouletas, the Chicago real-estate executive who will be married to Governor Carey Saturday, said yesterday that she planned to relinquish her ''personal career'' to devote herself full time to her role as ''First Lady of the State of New York.'' Miss Gouletas is a principal of the American Invsco Corporation, purported to be the largest converter of condominiums in the country. She did not give details of her planned career shift, nor did she explain how or if she would formally divest herself of her interests in American Invsco. When asked, however, if she would continue as a consultant to her corporation, she said she would not.

Leftist insurgents and right-wing forces in El Salvador have committed a series of assassinations aimed at destabilizing the Government, according to American intelligence and State Department officials. Weekly ''violence reports'' circulated in the State Department have noted a significant increase in the number of such assassination attempts. Officials said that in the last month about 30 such incidents a week had been documented. ''These incidents are beginning to reflect a pattern, or the emergence of a new strategy by the left,'' said James R. Cheek, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. ''This kind of activity must be stopped now, like the first signs of a cold.''

Nine days after being shot in the chest, President Reagan spends about two hours a day doing work brought from the White House to the hospital and the remaining time resting, reading and undergoing sometimes painful exercises and physical therapy for his wounds, White House officials say. Visitors who have seen Mr. Reagan at George Washington University Hospital report that he has lost weight and is looking drawn. His spirits are reported good despite a fever that has prevented him from returning to the White House as early as he had hoped. Today the President's temperature was reported to be ''essentially normal,'' and Dr. Dennis S. O'Leary, medical spokesman at George Washington University Hospital, said the President could be expected to return to the White House by Monday.

Defense ministers of the North Atlantic alliance warned the Soviet Union today that military intervention in Poland ''would have profound implications for all aspects of East-West relations.'' ''Poland should be free to decide her own future,'' the ministers asserted. The Text of statement is on page A11. warning was issued despite an announcement that the Warsaw Pact military maneuvers in and around Poland had ended. Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, asked about the threat to Poland, said, ''I don't have any feeling that it's over.''

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Norma Skurka is a freelance writer in the design field. By NORMA SKURKA THE surge of interest in health and fitness in the last decade and the accompanying relaxed attitude about personal relationships have changed both the function and design of the bathroom. Once hidden behind locked doors, the bath and shower have come out in the open, merging with the bedroom to form a bath/dressing/exercise complex. ''People are willing to pay more for something special,'' said David Becker of Greene Street Construction Company, a SoHo concern associated with Design Coalition. ''Bathrooms are no longer just a place to wash one's face in or in which to take a quick shower.''

A team of former corporate executives from a business group founded by David Rockefeller produced a plan yesterday listing major New York City Transit Authority problems. It offered to recruit 20 executives to begin solving them. The group's recommendations came after a two-month examination of the Transit Authority's management and operations. The study and plan were done by the Economic Development Council, and in general they prescribe a heavy dose of private managerial techniques to cure the city's ailing subway and bus service.