What was going on when I was born?

The New York Jets have rejected the city's offer for a new lease at Shea Stadium and, beginning next year, will play their home games at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, Mayor Koch announced yesterday. The Mayor made the announcement at an unusual City Hall news conference where he and other city officials made frequent derisive references to Leon Hess, the Jets' owner. They said their inability through six months of on-and-off negotiations to persuade Mr. Hess to stay in New York was not a result of financial considerations. The city, they contended, had offered enough incentives so that the team would fare no better by moving to New Jersey. The officials said they learned of Mr. Hess's decision Monday. Mr. Koch said he believed that Mr. Hess was moving because of an ''emotional matter'' between Mr. Hess and M. Donald Grant, the former chairman of the board of the Mets, the baseball team that is the primary tenant at Shea Stadium.

A House subcommittee approved legislation today that would spare residential telephone customers a long-distance ''access fee'' scheduled to start Jan. 1 but would let the new charge take effect for business customers. The complex bill, approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications by a 10-to-5 vote, would also establish a Universal Service Fund intended to assure that poor people and those living in rural areas would not lose their telephones because of the sharply increasing rates expected in the next few years. A spokesman for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company said the company was ''dismayed by the House action'' because it seemed ''to create chaos out of order.''

An article Sept. 10 on the Center for Investigative Reporting misidentified the center's former executive director and a founder of the center.

IT looks like a furniture bestiary: lizards inhabiting a forest of leaves on the front of a chest; drawer fronts of triangulated fish with tiny knobs for eyes; a wriggle of snakes climbing up toward a clear- glass tabletop; leopards meeting nose to nose and insinuating their cat grace the length of a sofa. The creatures are the work of the furniture maker Judy Kinsley McKie, and most of them can be seen at the Elements Gallery, 90 Hudson Street, where a show of her work will continue through Oct. 8. When Mrs. McKie began making her first chairs and couches to furnish her apartment in the late 1960's she started with the most basic - simple, angular, undecorated modern furniture. The animals evolved gradually from the hand of this self-taught carpenter.

A report in the Debt Issues listing of Business Day on Tuesday misidentified the lead underwriter for a Eurobond financing by Comsat International N.V. It is Credit Suisse First Boston.

IT is generally accepted that Italian designers and architects are the couturiers in the field of furniture design. For the past 20 years, they have been the innovators, trend setters and experimentalists. And while their modern designs have grown to be widely accepted in Europe, most of the avant-garde furniture by Italian designers and manufacturers is, save by the cognoscenti, virtually unknown in the United States. But this year at the Salone del Mobile Italiano, the prestigious furniture fair held in Milan earlier this month, there seemed to be changes in the air. One of these was a distinct cross-pollination of ideas between the worlds of furniture and fashion.

The Federal Bankruptcy Act, once the last resort of companies on their deathbeds, is increasingly being used by ailing concerns in less immediate peril to escape labor contracts and other obligations that threaten their long-term health. This week, as Continental Air Lines seeks to return to profitability as a slimmed-down carrier by using the act to sweep aside its labor contracts, and Eastern Airlines threatens the same, outraged union leaders are crying foul. Union leaders say Continental and other companies that have enough cash to stay in business are abusing the bankruptcy law to bypass the usual bargaining process and to impose Draconian wage cuts and working conditions. Started by Manville The protests are reminiscent of those by lawyers representing asbestos claimants in August 1982, when the Manville Corporation filed for bankruptcy on the ground that more than 16,000 lawsuits related to its production of asbestos threatened the company's survival.

International Yuri V. Andropov criticized President Reagan's new proposals forlimiting medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe as unacceptable. In an unusually strong personal statement, the Soviet leader raised questions about the entire spectrum of Soviet-American relations under the Reagan Administration. The response was coupled with a warning that the deployment of new American missiles in Western Eruope, scheduled for December, would be ''a step against peace.'' (Page A1, Column 6.) The evocation of the War Powers Act in Lebanon and authorization of the deployment of American marines in Beirut were provided for in legislation approved by the House of Representatives. The historic vote marked the first time that a House of Congress has decided to invoke the War Powers Act, which was passed 10 years ago as a Congressional move to place constraints upon the war-making powers of a President. The Senate will vote on the resolution Thursday, and is expected to pass it. (A1:4.)

Mayor Koch yesterday prohibited city officials from conducting municipal business or spending city money at private clubs with restrictive membership policies. Just before he signed the executive order, which took effect immediately, the Mayor was asked what would happen if a city official did business in a restricted club. ''If you unintentionally violate the order and put in a chit, we're not going to pay,'' Mr. Koch said. ''And if you intentionally violate it and you are fire-able, we'll fire you.''

Turner Broadcasting System Inc., which has been negotiating with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation about a merger of the two companies' cable television 24-hour news services, suspended trading in its stock yesterday afternoon, pending an announcement today on the negotiations. Trading was halted on the over-the-counter market at 3:58 P.M., after the bid price had climbed 3 1/4, to 25 3/4. The halt came just two minutes before the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where Westinghouse is listed. Billie Brown, a spokesman for Westinghouse, said afterward: ''There's nothing to report today.'' Westinghouse closed at 47 1/8, down 3/8.

Yuri V. Andropov said today that President Reagan's new proposals for limiting medium- range nuclear weapons in Europe were unacceptable. In a highly unusual and strongly worded personal statement, the Soviet leader raised questions about the entire spectrum of Soviet-American relations under the Reagan Administration. It was the first direct response by a Soviet leader to proposals on medium- range missiles announced Monday by Mr. Reagan at the United Nations. The response was coupled with a warning that the deployment of American missiles in Europe, scheduled for December, would be ''a step against peace.''

With the help of information provided by members of the community, detectives yesterday arrested four men and charged then with the weekend burglary and vandalism of the building that houses the Dance Theater of Harlem. Another man was arrested on charges on possession of property stolen from the building. The police said they had recovered $5,000 worth of stolen television and recording equipment and were looking for office machines and other stolen property. Theater officials have estimated their loss from the burglary and vandalism at between $75,000 and $100,000.