What was going on when I was born?

For four months, New York City corrections officials have released prisoners from the Rikers Island jail complex for part of each workday to serve on crews that clean and rehabilitate parks. The Koch administration was initially concerned about the reaction in affected neighborhoods, and so while officials are now eag er to discuss the program, they made no public anno uncement when it started. The prisoners were all serving sentences of no more than 90 days and were all convicted of misdemeanor charges. Working in teams of 12 to 15 and accompanied by two guards armed with .38-cali ber revolvers, they have raked leaves, painted benches and carted of f trash in three parks and a recreation center in Brooklyn.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating possible insider trading in the stock of Dean Witter Reynolds Organization Inc. before its takeover last October by Sears, Roebuck & Company, according to sources familiar with the investigation. It could not be learned who the targets of the investigation are. Public records show heavy trading in Dean Witter options and stock in the days before the $607 million acquisition.

LOFT and apartment residents often find themselves in a similar predicament: They want to alter their space, by opening up one area to another, by putting up a wall to get privacy or by creating dualpurpose areas. The designers and architects who apply them selves to these problems, in both flexible loft areas and apa rtments divided more rigidly into partitioned rooms, appear to be most successful when their strategies revolve around innovative us e of doors, partitions and walls. The renovation of the Chelsea loft that belongs to Jack Brusca, the painter and jewelry designer, is a case in point. Despite its single row of windows with a southern exposure, little daylight reached the kitchen, 100 feet away. Besides coping with this situation, Raul Rosas, the architect in charge, also needed to find a way to separate the bedroom from the open living area.

If this country's political leaders had to run for office, they could easily point to their record in fighting inflation. Since 1975, when inflation was running over 35 percent, the rate plummeted to just over 10 percent in 1977, and has been held under 5 percent in the four years since. Government spending has held steady for three years running. And economic growth has averaged 21.4 percent a year since 1975.

The United States economy is in steep recession, with the gross national product falling at a 5.2 percent rate in the latest quarter. Inflation has declined steadily for nearly two years, and unemployment seems to have replaced rising prices as the nation's biggest economic worry. Yet interest rates, which traditionally have tracked both economic activity and the inflation rate, are not going down. They did so for a couple of months last fall but, since about Thanksgiving, the rates have been rising sharply. Some economists predict they are headed back to last year's record levels.

Sol David, who survived Nazi concentration camps in World War II only to be murdered in Brooklyn by a robber who killed him with a single bullet, was buried yesterday. With Mr. David's widow, Flora, sobbing uncontrollably as relatives sought to comfort her, Rabbi Paul Gruber told more than 50 mourners at the Flatbush funeral service that ''we cannot adjust to it when death appears in such a gruesome and tragic way.'' Mr. David, a 67-year-old retired tailor from Czechoslovakia, was shot in a Canarsie playground Monday as he was returning around 6 P.M. to his h ome from a day of baby-sitting with his grandchildren ina housing pro ject a few blocks away. He was shot once behind the left ear and his wallet, containing about $45, was taken. The body was found lying face down in the snow and there was no sign of a struggle, the police said.

France's Socialist Government said today that it would pay roughly 8 billion francs, or $1.5 billion, in additional compensation to shareholders in the leading industrial companies and banks that it plans to nationalize. The amount represents approximately a 25 percent increase over the compensation originally planned. The decision, bitterly criticized by the Government's Communist supporters and the left wing of the Socialist Party, is in response to last weekend's ruling by France's supreme legal tribunal, the Constitutional Council. The council ruled that the Socialists' original nationalization plan was illegal because shareholders would be inadequately compensated.

President Reagan will seek temporary increases in excise taxes on gasoline, cigarettes, whisky and wine, officials said. Beer was excluded. Mr. Reagan is expected to seek to allot part or all of the additional revenues for distribution among the states. (Page A1.) The gross national product fell at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter after adjustment for inflation, the Government reported. The decline affected almost every sector of the economy, with the auto and housing industries hardest hit. (D1.) Despite the recession, interest rates are not declining and, some economists say, may be headed back up to last year's record levels. (D1.)

The Business Dige st in Business Day yesterday incorrectly identified a company whose earnings declined 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter last year. It was the Westinghouse Electric Cor- poration.

The nation's gross national product, after adjustment for inflation, fell at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 1981, confirming that a widespread recession has overtaken the economy. The decline in the real G.N.P., the broadest measure of the nation's economic activity, was the second in the last three quarters, during which the unemploy ment rate jumped from 7 percent inJuly to 8.9 percent in December. While the sl ump in the fourth quarter hit almost every sector of the econom y except services and government spending, the automobile and housi ng industries bore most of the brunt of the decline. The fourth-quarter decline, while steep, was significantly less than the 9.9 percent decline in the second quarter of 1980, during the heart of the last recession. Nevertheless, the October-through-December drop in the G.N.P., the total value of goods and services, was the fifth-largest quarterly drop since World War II.

A tax package enacted last year to subsidize mass transit and to help protect the 75-cent fare may produce up to $100 million dollars less than originally projected, state officials said today. The package, passed under the threat of an increase in the transit fare to $1, had been expected to produce $301 million by next July. But one of the taxes has been challenged in the courts, another faces a possible challenge and a third has produced far less re venue than expected. Officials of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said, however, that they had been assured by the Governor's staff and legislative leaders that any shortage would be made up out of state funds and would not threaten the fare.

A $1 million fund voted to Representative Frederick W. Richmond as a pension by the corporation he controlled was voided yesterday by a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. The justice , Martin B. Stecher, ruled that the sum, payable over 10years beginni ng in 1978, constituted ''an illegal gift of corporate assets.'' He enjoined further payments and ordered Mr. Richmond, a Democrat of B rooklyn, to repay the portion already received, about $300,000.