What was going on when I was born?

In the summer of 1983, a new construction company called Concor Associates began renovating dilapidated tenements in East Harlem. Yesterday, the full name and real purpose of the company were disclosed. Concor stands for Construction Corruption, and the company was established by the State Commission of Investigation to uncover racketeering and payoffs in the city's construction industry. In addition to finding graft among union officials and city inspectors, the commission said, it stumbled onto a major organized-crime gambling ring that rented a room in an apartment building Concor was renovating and used it as a headquarters to redistribute bets from bookmakers in five states.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl said today that he was gratified President Reagan had reaffirmed his intention to visit a German military cemetery next month, saying it showed he was ''a friend of the Germans.'' Mr. Kohl told a West German television interviewer that he and Mr. Reagan had discussed the President's revised plan to visit both the Bitburg cemetery and the site of the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp and that Mr. Reagan's decision on his German itinerary was ''final.'' The Bergen-Belsen visit was announced today by the White House. The Chancellor added that Germans ''ought to be very reserved'' in regard to the American debate over Mr. Reagan's plan to visit the cemetery, which has sparked strong criticism from American veterans' organizations as well as Jewish groups in West Germany and the United States. 'Hard Decision' for Reagan ''I know that this was a hard decision for the President,'' the West German leader said, adding that he understood the reaction of American Jews and victims of what he called ''the Nazi barbarity.''

Japan has agreed to simplify some of its telecommunications regulations, making them comparable to those in the United States, a team of American trade negotiators said today. The agreement appears to fulfill Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone's recent commitment that Japan would change regulations that American companies regarded as barriers to trade. The Japanese Government praised the agreement, which was reached well before a June deadline. The five-day talks were held amid mounting trade frictions between the two nations, political pressures that the negotiators said had helped to speed their progress.

The space shuttle Discovery landed safely today, despite a tire blowout and a gaping hole at the end of one wing, ending a seven-day mission remarkable for the unexpected things that kept happening at every turn. Like the flight itself, the landing did not go exactly as planned. It was delayed an extra orbit because of rain clouds. When the 100-ton spaceship finally touched down here, at 8:55 A.M., the brakes on one landing gear locked, shredding two tires and causing a blowout. Two other tires were badly worn. Technicians who examined the Discovery found a hole the size of a dinner plate at the tip of the left wing where the elevon, a maneuvering and control flap, hinges to the wing. A heat-shielding tile had come loose, and the fiery temperatures of re-entry melted some of the exposed aluminum and other components of the elevon.

A fire that has been charring Isabela Island for the last month has made life precarious for nesting birds, giant tortoises and other forms of wildlife unique to the Galapagos Islands. But for some of the human residents of this Ecuadorean archipelago, the blaze has created a modest boom. Firefighting experts, pilots, scientists, journalists, volunteers, yachtsmen and tourists have been flocking to the Pacific islands, some to help put out the fire, some to observe the proceedings, others merely to savor the excitement. But whatever their reasons for coming, they have been spending money, and the results are visible in this dusty little fishing village. Big Fire on Isabela Island Sooner or later, nearly everyone who visits the Galapagos Islands ends up here, at least for a few days. Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island is not the archipelago's capital town - Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal Island has that distinction - nor does it command a view of the big fire on Isabela, which lies 60 miles to the west. But Puerto Ayora is where one finds soft beds, cold beer and good talk, not to mention tame tortoises, Darwin's finches and iguanas.

President Reagan listened intently today as Elie Wiesel, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, implored him to cancel a visit to a German cemetery where Nazi war dead are buried. ''That place, Mr. President, is not your place,'' Mr. Wiesel told Mr. Reagan at White House ceremonies honoring the 56-year-old writer. ''Your place is with the victims of the SS.'' White House Announcement The moment, in the silence of the packed Roosevelt Room, came on a day when the White House announced that Mr. Reagan would visit the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp site. His visit to the camp, where Anne Frank died, will be made on the same day that he attends ceremonies at the Bitburg military cemetery, which includes the graves of 47 SS soldiers, members of the Nazi elite guard.

City and transit officials say they are negotiating the details of merging the transit police force into the New York City Police Department. A report ordered earlier this year by Mayor Koch recommends that the transit police, a separate force for half a century, be absorbed at first as a bureau within the City Police Department. A combined force would be more efficient in fighting crime, proponents of the proposal say. Several city officials are optimistic that an agreement will be reached, perhaps in a matter of weeks, if transit officials are assured that their concerns will be addressed.

Showing a visitor around this northern city of about 600,000 people, the young architect frowned. ''The problem with Edmonton is that there's nothing to see,'' she said. ''But just because there's nothing to see doesn't mean you should see nothing.'' Indeed, beyond some boarded-up buildings and the unemployed construction workers in the bars of the cheap hotels, a new optimism is in the air.

The Israeli military government in the West Bank declared the campus of Bethlehem University a closed area today.

The White House and Congress worked today on a compromise on President Reagan's request for $14 million in aid to Nicaraguan insurgents, but the effort was hindered by procedural complications and wide differences over how the money is to be spent. Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to meet with the President on Sunday afternoon to try to develop legislative language that would provide the symbolic show of support that the President wants for the anti-Sandinista cause in Nicaragua, while limiting the use of the money to purchase of nonlethal supplies rather than military assistance as first proposed. Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, the minority leader, said he was willing to work with the Republican leadership to find a way to substitute another proposal for the President's before a scheduled vote on Tuesday, as long as the new plan was a widely acceptable compromise. Nonmilitary Aid Supported He said he was willing to support nonmilitary aid for the rebels, as long as that aid was not funneled through the Central Intelligence Agency.

A Senate subcommittee heard detailed evidence today showing purported links between the Nicaraguan Government and international narcotics trafficking. A former drug trafficker, James A. Herring Jr., who has acted as a Federal informant, testified that he worked with Cuban Government officials and with the American fugitive Robert Vesco to help the Nicaraguan Government build a cocaine-processing laboratory near Managua. Mr. Herring said that he had worked with members of the Nicaraguan military and that Nicaragua's Interior Minister, Tomas Borge, had offered his personal thanks for helping with what Mr. Borge called ''our project,'' whose purpose was to earn foreign currency for Nicaragua's troubled economy.

Israel would, in effect, be prepared to give up the security zone it plans to establish in southern Lebanon for an informal agreement with Lebanon's Shiite Amal militia to keep the area quiet, senior Israeli military sources said today. ''We would be prepared to trade the security zone for a deal with the Shiites,'' said a senior military source directly involved in policy making on Lebanon. ''We would like them to know that we mean business. Though we know that Amal could not, even if it wanted, fully guarantee security in the area, we believe they could do so to a large degree. We regard them as an address we can deal with, and we are not looking for any formal arrangements.''