What was going on when I was born?

For evidence that SoHo has become another high-priced Manhattan residential area, look at 426 West Broadway, just opened and billed as SoHo's first luxury residential condominium. The 35 units range in size from 550 to 3,000 square feet and are priced from $120,000 to $350,000.

A PROSPECTIVE Cuomo administration appointment has split the Island's Democratic delegation to the Legislature and produced a breach between the new Governor and one of his earliest supporters on the Island. The appointment, which would take effect May 1 or before, would put Harold D. Berger, a former Democratic district leader in Nassau, into the office of regional director of the Environmental Conservation Department - one of the most sensitive state posts affecting the Island. He would replace Donald J. Middleton, who held the post through the Carey administration and was originally sponsored for the job by Dominic J. Baranello, the Suffolk Democratic chairman. Controversy over the matter has been building up since it became known that Mr. Berger was the Governor's choice.

SINCE it's politically imprudent to raise taxes, elected officials from county executive and town supervisor on down to village trustee are turning to user fees as a means of bringing in new revenues. A user fee is a tax, though it doesn't sound like a tax. Proponents say that user fees are an effective means of making people pay for services that they alone use, such as golf courses and ice-skating rinks. Opponents argue that user fees are a form of double taxation that discriminates against the poor and elderly. Opponents also argue that the fees are being raised at all levels of government on the Island not just to cover the cost of a particular service, but to produce new tax revenues.

''It may not be a work of art,'' Representative Barber B. Conable Jr., a New York Republican, remarked. ''But it will save the nation's basic social insurance system from imminent disaster.'' So Congress, in last week's pre-recess rush for the exits, passed and sent to the White House legislation designed to keep Social Security solvent well into the next century. The plan, which draws heavily on the recommendations of a Presidential commission, would pump nearly $165 billion extra into the Government's retirement trust funds by the end of the decade. Starting next year, new Federal employees and those on the payroll of nonprofit organizations will be required to join; new payroll tax increases are due in 1984 and 1988; for the first time benefits paid to more affluent retirees will be taxed; and the retirement age will be gradually increased by two years, to 67, by 2027.

THE tax cost of operating an office in New York City is going up s harply, widening the differential between what it costs to house a b usiness in the city and in urban and suburban locations elsewhere i n the metropolitan region. Most businesses pay real-estate taxes indirectly as part of their rent, and taxes on office buildings in prime Manhattan locations add an average of $4 to $5 a square foot a year to commercial rents, double the average tax cost of $2 a square foot for equivalent space outside the city. In new buildings in the city, taxes cost tenants a minimum of $10 a square foot. In addition, office tenants in the city also pay a commercial rent tax of 5 to 6 percent a year on their rent bills, which can add about $2 a square foot more to their costs. These differentials have existed for many years, but now they are widening. Mayor Koch is proposing to raise the real-estate tax rate to close the gap in his 1984 budget. Until mid-March, he also planned a new 10 percent capital-gains tax on real-estate transactions of $1 million or more, which would fall principally on commercial properties. After Governor Cuomo proposed such a tax statewide, city officials said they would wait until the actual legislation was drafted to see whether they could combine their plan with the Governor's, scrap it or substantially alter it.

Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders have agreed to abolish the state's most important job incentive program, administration officials said today. The accord follows criticism that the program, which is run by the Job Incentive Board, has given tax breaks to corporations that did not need them and has been ineffective in stimulating new jobs or investment. The agreement was reached as the Governor and legislative leaders put the finishing touches on the state budget, and as both houses, meeting in unusual Saturday sessions that adjourned by 9 P.M., began debating and passing the scores of bills needed to put the budget in place before the April 1 deadline. At the same time, union officials and administration aides said the Cuomo administration had agreed to delay the effective date of layoffs of state workers by nearly a month, from April 7 to May 5. An administration official said the delay would cost about $12 million.

PARENTS and other relatives are often called upon to help a young c ouple buy their first home. Mixing love and money can lead to h eadaches and heartaches if anything goes wrong or if someone fails t o live up to the bargain. But besides weighing the emotional risks, p arents who want to help also should consider many practical q uestions. Do they want to make an outright gift to their children? Does it make more sense to lend the money? Should the loan be interest-free? Some parents choose to give their children a mortgage that, unlike a loan, is secured by the property. Perhaps the parents want to be joint owners or cosigners on a mortgage.

On July 1 of this year Sherman E. Lee retires after 25 years as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. I know of no one in the field who does not agree that the American museum world without Mr. Lee will be a thinner and a less interesting place. If he is a controversial figure, as is sometimes said, it is because he believes that the role of a great museum is not to be in the news, on no matter what pretext, but to set the highest possible standards of administration, scholarship and acquisitions policy. He is not interested in showmanship, though no one is better than he at hitting the headlines when he wants to make his voice heard. He is deeply suspicious of the new relationship between museums, public relations firms and big business. The odious word ''blockbuster'' has never passed his lips. Nor would he mean the word as a compliment if he could bring himself to use it.

A SMOOTH, modulated voice emerged last Sunday through the earthy sounds of the fund-raising breakfast for Tony Veteran. It was a radio commercial, prepared by Tony Schwartz, a media consultant, for the race that Mr. Veteran, the Greenburgh Town Supervisor, is waging for the Democratic nomination for County Executive. ''We may not have as much money as one of my opponents said he'd need,'' Mr. Veteran had said, referring to Ogden R. Reid's estimate of $500,000 to $750,000 for the race to oust Andrew P. O'Rourke, the Republican incumbent, ''but we'll hold our own.'' The radio commercials were intended to demonstrate that.

WHEN the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary, America's oldest national Audubon refuge, was founded in Oyster Bay 60 years ago, people had different ideas about birds. ''They used to eat robins and songbirds,'' said Marguerite Wolffsohn, a wildlife specialist at the sanctuary. ''They used to shoot screech owls.'' As time passed, Long Islanders' culinary habits changed, and so the bird sanctuary has had to change. Miss Wolffsohn doesn't know of anybody in the small sanctuary's surroundings who eats songbirds any more.

FRUSTRATED by what they perceive as official indifference to their needs, county horse owners and riders have formed a county chapter of the New York State Horse Council, a nonprofit organization founded in 1966 to provide a voice for people interested in horses and horserelated activities. Dr. John E. Lowe of Ithaca, N.Y., the president of the state council, said the Westchester chapter was the first created on a county level. ''To have a local group affiliate is a new idea,'' Dr. Lowe said, explaining that the state council was structured with three regions that each incorporate several counties. ''It's the first development of this sort and members should be able to mount a more concerted effort.'' ''We never had the power and strength to get our views across,'' said John D. Baruc of New Rochelle, the acting president of the new chapter. ''We never banded together.'' He said members would address what they saw as serious problems facing professional and recreational horsemen, including the condition of the county's riding trails and the possibility of zoning regulations that could discourage the keeping of horses.

NEWARK THE strike by conductors and trainmen against NJ Transit's nine rail lines enters its 28th day tomorrow. As the day drew near, there was little on the negotiating table - or the horizon - to suggest a quick settlement. Neither NJ Transit, nor the striking United Transportation Union, nor two state mediators appeared confident of a quick end to the strike without major changes in current negotiating positions. ''This is a difficult one,'' Charles Serraino, a mediator and former state Labor Commissioner, said of prospects for a solution in coming days. ''It's hard to call.''