What was going on when I was born?

New York City officials hope to divert $88 million from the construction of a new sewage plant so they can repair two crumbling treatment plants in Brooklyn that now threaten to release raw sewage into surrounding waters. Last month the city said it was scaling down plans for the North River plant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, thereby saving $240 million in Federal money this year. In a complicated trade-in, the city is seeking to divert one-third of that money to begin rebuilding two of the city's oldest plants, at Owl's Head and Coney Island, which they say are on the verge of collapse. Fouling of Beaches Feared If the Owl's Head plant in Bay Ridge failed, officials say, 80 million gallons of raw sewage a day could begin pouring into the Upper Bay. A failure at the Coney Island plant, they said, could spill sewage near local beaches and also cause it to back up into the homes of 680,000 people in Brooklyn.

The foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met here today and agreed to look for ways to better coordinate Western policy on trade with the Soviet bloc. Officials here said that the participants decided to start a series of studies on how their security interests are affected by energy policies and the extension of credits to the Soviet Union and its allies. The discussions, which took place at the one-day private conference in a secluded inn in the Laurentian Mountains, were seen as a step toward easing the conflicts among the 16 NATO nations over financial dealings with the Soviet bloc. The conference came four days after Secretary of State George P. Shultz began discussions with France, Britain, Italy and West Germany on overall East-West economic issues. Officials said that in his talks in New York, Mr. Shultz stressed that he wanted to put aside the controversy over the Soviet natural-gas pipeline project as part of an overall effort to find a new approach to trade issues that would avoid such rifts in the future. The four European countries are the principal suppliers of equipment for the pipeline, which is to carry natural gas from Siberia to Western Europe.

A major marketing war has erupted among banks, brokerage firms, mutual funds and other financial service companies to lure the tens of billions of dollars invested in ''all-savers'' certificates when the program was authorized a year ago. The all-savers program, which started on Oct. 1, 1981, as a result of last year's tax law, allowed financial institutions to sell oneyear certificates of deposit whose yields were made particularly attractive by a large exclusion of interest payments from Federal income taxes. An impressive $52.8 billion flowed into commercial banks, savings and loan associations and savings banks through the end of August 1982. But $31 billion, or 59 percent of the total, matures this month - and everyone in the financial business is fighting to obtain as much of it as possible.

Republicans with plausible chances of defeating incumbent House Democrats are running local, not national, campaigns, focusing more on the characteristics of their districts or the weaknesses of their opponents than on matters like the economy. Knowing that the recession makes many Republicans vulnerable on the economy, national party leaders here have stressed the importance of recruiting attractive candidates and have provided the money for it. They have also emphasized building up local campaigns and polling to find particular weaknesses and strengths. In Long Beach, Calif., Brian Lungren stresses age and vigor in a campaign against a Congressman twice his age, Glenn M. Anderson. In southeastern North Carolina, Eugene (Red) McDaniel emphasizes his record as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and shows television advertisements attacking Representative Charles O. Whitley for supporting special tax deductions for Congressmen.

Early findings of poor management, but not illegality, prompted a leadership shake-up and investigation of the New York State Dormitory Authority, state officials and aides to Governor Carey said yesterday. The officials said some officials of the authority lacked expertise in investment management, had taken unnecessary risks by investing 60 percent of the authority's portfolio in a little-known securities concern and had not monitored its investments closely enough. ''We know enough to know there were bad decisions made, but we need to know a lot more,'' said C. Mark Lawton, the state's Budget Director, who recommended the moves to the Governor. On Friday, Mr. Carey named a new chairman of the authority, disclosed the resignation of its executive director and directed the State Commission of Investigation to review the authority's investment policies. The authority had invested $304 million in Lombard-Wall Inc., a securities concern that filed for bankruptcy last August. About $52 million of the loans were not backed by collateral and may not be recoverable.

A price war between traditional rivals, thrift institutions and small commercial banks, could result from the landmark banking bill that won final Congressional approval in a voice vote in the House Friday night. The renewed competition could occur if a large number of savings and loan associations made use of the new commercial lending powers that the bill makes available to them, banking analysts say. The new law will allow the nation's approximately 5,000 thrift institutions - savings banks and savings and loan associations - to make commercial loans up to 10 percent of their total assets. They would be competing primarily against 14,000 small commercial banks.

Blue-chip stocks such as General Electric and International Business Machines scored solid gains in the stock market's spectacular summer rally. But the best performers on the New York Stock Exchange for the first nine months of 1982 were typically much smaller companies that are unfamiliar to most investors. Leading the list was Borman's Inc., a company that operates supermarkets under the name Farmer Jack, mainly in metropolitan Detroit. The No.2 spot went to the Vendo Company, which makes coinoperated vending machines for the soft-drink industry.

Governor Kean plans to ask the Federal Government, the New Jersey Legislature and the public for permission to establish a new ''bank'' to help pay for $10 billion in repairs and maintenance for sewers, water treatment systems and roads statewide. The so-called Infrastructure Bank would make loans at low interest or no interest to sewer authorities and other agencies that repair, build or maintain such basic services. The money for the loans would come from Federal grants formerly earmarked for projects around the state and from unused proceeds from state bond issues. As the loans were repaid the money and accrued interest would be recycled to make new loans. The bank's reserves would be replenished through interest on investments and repayment of loans, as well as through new Federal grants.

International Six Israeli soldiers were killed and 22 others wounded in an ambush six miles east of Lebanon's capital on the Beirut-Damascus highway. The attackers were not identified. Military analysts said that the ambush, the second in three days on Israeli troops in the area, could provoke retaliatory raids by Israeli artillery on Syrian and Palestinian positions across the cease-fire line. (Page A1, Column 6.) The foreign ministers of NATO agreed to set in motion a series of studies on how Western security interests are affected by energy policies and the extension of credits to the Soviet bloc nations. The ministers' discussion was seen as a step toward easing the conflict among NATO partners over financial dealings with the Soviet Union and its allies. (A1:5.)

For more than half a century, the Burnside Steel Foundry made tools for heavy industry. With annual sales of about $10 million, it was a source of economic strength on Chicago's industrial South Side, and employed dozens of workers. But the fires have flickered out in Burnside's furnaces, and the gates to the old brick plant have been locked since May. The only remaining employees are armed guards, who protect Burnside's only remaining assets, its idled machinery. Battered by bad luck and untimely management decisions, the company filed a bankruptcy petition last spring, joining a burgeoning list of small manufacturers unable to ride out the recession.

Six Israeli soldiers were killed and 22 others were wounded today in an ambush six miles east of Lebanon's capital on the Beirut-Damascus highway, the Israeli military command said. Military officials said the attackers were not identified. The officials said the attackers had apparently infiltrated Israeli lines near Aleih, a mountain town less than two miles from the ceasefire line separating the Israeli Army and forces of the Syrian Army and the guerrilla forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The ambush was the second attack in three days on Israeli troops in the Aleih area. An attack on Israelis Friday night resulted in an exchange of fire but no reported casualties.

The third quarter saw a gradual decline in the industrial sector, the nation's purchasing managers report in their latest survey. Although there was no sharp plunge, the survey shows, business activity slackened and employment was lower.