What was going on when I was born?

The National Organization for Women, which is in the last six weeks of its long-shot effort to get the proposed Federal equal rights amendment ratified, has raised more money for its ratification campaign this year than the most successful - and conservative - political action committees. The staff of NOW says it has received $1.3 million a month since last December through its direct mail, phone banks and television appeals -an amount that outstrips the $5.3 million that the political action committee (PAC) of the conservative Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina reported to the Federal Election Commission last year. This outpouring of money, principally from NOW's 200,000 members, is being spent on what most agree is an unlikely eventuality - the ratification in three states by June 30 of the proposed equal rights amendment. Feminist leaders and members of the Democratic Party, who enviously watch NOW spend so much money on what seems a desperate last hope, are questioning what will happen to this newly discovered money machine once the June 30 deadline passes. To be adopted the proposed amendment to the Constitution must be ratified by 38 state legislatures by then or it will die. Three more are still needed.

Chase Manhattan, in a reversal, agreed to accept full responsibility for some $270 million in overdue interest payments that it was unable to collect from Drysdale Government Securities. The move allayed fears that several Wall Street houses might collapse. (Page A1.) Drysdale was immersed in the risky practice of trading in shortterm loans backed by Treasury securities. (D1.) NLT announced a $600 million tender offer that would raise its stake in American General to 50.2 percent. American General has offered $1 billion in stock for NLT. Though NLT insisted its offer was serious, analysts suggested its aim was to persuade American General to sweeten its offer or sell its 9.1 percent stake in NLT. (D1.)

President Reagan has designated a cluster plan as the preferred method for basing the MX missiles, Administration and Congressional officials said today. According to the officials, Mr. Reagan has ordered the Defense Department to evaluate the new plan's feasibility as quickly as possible. The proposal, known as ''Dense Pack,'' would involve clustering 100 missiles in hardened silos on a single site of 10 to 15 square miles. The officials emphasized that the President had not made the decision irrevocably but considered it the leading candidate. ''He's made a decision to decide,'' said one Congressional official.

Corporate profits fell 17.5 percent, almost a record, in the first quarter of this year, reflecting the squeeze on companies from declining production and high interest rates, the Commerce Department reported today. The department also said that the gross national product, after adjustment for inflation, fell at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the first quarter, a steeper drop than the preliminary 3.9 percent figure reported last month. The gross national product, the broadest measure of economic performance, is the total value of the nation's goods and services. These reports, combined with the 6.4 percent decline in April housing starts reported yesterday and six-tenths of 1 percent drop in industrial production announced last week, indicate that the recession is likely to continue at least through June, despite Administration assertions in recent weeks that it had reached bottom.

''The time left for negotiations must now be measured in hours.'' - Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar of the United Nations. (A1:6.)

With the Falkland Islands peace talks on the verge of collapse, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar telephoned the leaders of Argentina and Britain today to appeal for more time to reach an accord. He announced his dramatic gesture at a closed meeting of the Security Council. Members said he did not claim to have received any assurances from either President Leopoldo Galtieri, leader of the Argentine junta, or Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. But the members left their session with the impression, as one put it, that ''the Secretary General has won perhaps 24 more hours.''

International An extension of peace talks was requested by the United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, in telephone calls to the leaders of Argentina and Britain as negotiations over the Falkland Islands were on the verge of collapse. Security Council members said they had the impression that he had won ''perhaps 24 hours more.'' (Page A1, Column 6.) Britain's membership in the European Economic Community could be in doubt after the nine other members ignored a British veto, President Francois Mitterrand of France said. For the first time, a majority refused to allow the veto that all members had been assumed to enjoy over majority community decisions. (A1:5.)

About 30,000 jurors in New York City, along with many part-time stenographers, interpreters and others supplying services to the local courts, have not been paid since January. There are conflicting views about whether the court system's fiscal condition or problems with the state's new computer system in Albany account for the situation, which is more serious than any in recent memory, according to local and state officials. The problem extends to thousands of jurors throughout the state, but is especially severe in the city. According to the New York County Clerk, Norman Goodman, the state's debt to jurors in New York City totals more than $3 million.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin's fragile coalition narrowly survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament today after a day of back-room bargaining and public name-calling. The 58-to-57 vote followed the defection Tuesday of two legislators from Mr. Begin's Likud bloc, Amnon Linn and Yitzhak Peretz. The Israeli radio said Mr. Linn received telephoned threats on his life after he left the Begin camp and was assigned a bodyguard. Mr. Peretz was assaulted in his Jerusalem hotel, the radio reported, but was not hurt. A police spokesman said a complaint had been received from Mr. Linn but not from Mr. Peretz.

ARCHITECTS typically plan buildings, not gardens, and the materials they use - concrete, steel, wood and glass - are hardly components of a leafy retreat. Yet when they are faced with designing their own city yard or roof terrace, their experience and training affect what they do and how they do it. From their various approaches, other city gardeners can learn much about small-space composition and the use of texture, light and color in designing outdoor spaces. An architect can consider shrubs and vines as inanimate building materials for creating spaces to walk through or simply to look at. Leaf shapes and sizes are textures to be contrasted, flowers a colorful palette. Plants with unusual branch forms become sculptural ornaments. On more familiar ground, they carefully consider the treatment of garden walkways and walls - whether of wood decking, brick, stone or masonry - as essential to their garden designs. ''I tend to think of my garden as another kind of room,'' said the architect William J. Conklin, discussing the planning of his mid-Manhattan town house yard. ''It's sort of like doing outside interior design.'' A partner in the firm of Conklin Rossant, he is completing plans for several buildings in Battery Park City and he has also just finished designing a small pavilion for his ''outside garden room.''

Savings banks in New York State continued to experience large losses in the first three months of the year, but as a result of a general decline in interest rates, the losses were not as severe as they had been in the fourth quarter, according to figures released yesterday by the New York State Banking Department. In New York City, only two savings banks showed a net profit. Net operating losses reported by the state's savings banks declined to $342 million, from $427 million in the fourth quarter of 1981, the banking department said. But the latest first-quarter loss was 54.3 percent greater than $221.7 million loss reported in the same period last year.

Faced with the prospect that it might be blamed if several Wall Street houses collapsed, the Chase Manhattan Bank reversed itself yesterday and agreed to pay off an estimated $270 million in interest payments that Chase is unable to collect from Drysdale Government Securities. The announcement allayed fears that Drysdale's problems - stemming from unsuccessful speculation in Government notes and bonds - would hurt the financial markets. But Chase, the nation's third-largest bank, said it would have to take a $135 million after-tax write-off in the second quarter as a result of the Drysdale default. The write-off could mean a loss for the bank in the second quarter. Chase earned $100.6 million in that quarter last year and $443 million for all of 1981. It earned $116.1 million in this year's first quarter.