What was going on when I was born?

A Long Island developer who converted a string of motels into resort cooperatives and condominiums has made a deal to buy the Tudor Hotel on East 42d Street in Manhattan, where he plans to sell rooms through a time-share plan. If approved by state officials, it will be the first attempt at time-sharing for a hotel here.

At the new Army chemical factory that local residents nonchalantly call ''the nerve gas plant,'' the waiting conveyor belts are wrapped in protective plastic. The kettles and scrubbers were tested in June and pronounced ready, pending only the final pull of political levers in Washington. If that comes -both supporters and opponents say they expect the House to pass the bill in a final vote in September - the Pine Bluff Arsenal and the Federal Government will be back in the chemical weapon business for the first time in 16 years. With the start of production, an incinerating plant now under construction on the other side of the thickly timbered Army reservation here is to begin destroying part of the old stockpile of chemical weapons, 721 tons of deteriorating cluster bombs and drums containing the incapacitating agent BZ. Victory for the Pentagon The move toward resumption of production of chemical weapons is the Pentagon's most impressive and unexpected political victory of the year.

In Africa, having many children has customarily been considered a gift of divine favor and having none, a great curse. Yet population experts say they believe - and governments in Africa are beginning to agree - that the continent is sagging under the weight of a population that is now estimated at 500 million and is increasing at the rate of 3 percent each year, faster than any other region in the world. The governments have begun to grapple with the problem as Pope John Paul II is insisting that Roman Catholics shun artificial methods of birth control. Highest Birth Rate in Kenya The issue places the Pope and the governments in open conflict. Vatican sources have said that opposition to artificial contraception may be one of the themes stressed by the Pope during his 12-day tour of seven African countries. They include Kenya, which has the world's highest population growth rate, at 4.1 percent, as well as Togo, the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Zaire and Morocco.

To the people who grew up in the neighborhood, who saw it flourish and then nearly die, the Crotona Park Pool sometimes seems like an enormous mirage, its Caribbean-blue waters shimmering amid the empty lots and tightly packed brick apartment buildings of the South Bronx. On hot summer days like yesterday, with hundreds of children splashing in the water beneath her lifeguard's chair, 25-year-old Teresa Gonzalez remembers when she was a little girl at the pool, and how as she got older the pool that everyone knew as the biggest and grandest in all the Bronx deteriorated along with the surrounding park and streets. ''Every day my mother would say, 'Go to the pool! Go to the pool! Get out of the house!' '' said Miss Gonzalez, who recently received a degree in mechanical engineering from City College. ''But then the neighborhood went down and turned into what was known as The South Bronx,'' she said. ''All the abandoned buildings. The park was neglected. The pool got infamous. When I was a teen-ager, going to Crotona Pool was taking your chances.''

A building boom in the late 1970's and early 1980's gave Hauppauge, in western Suffolk County, some 12 million square feet of industrial space in the form of high-technology research-and-development facilities. The commercial expansion not only provided an estimated 35,000 jobs but also created a demand for housing in that part of the county.

A new concrete highway near here, Appalachian Corridor G, curves smoothly through wide, newly blasted granite canyons and soars over resculpted green mountains. But then, repeatedly, barricades appear, and the concrete ends. Long, tortuous stretches over the steepest mountains are still traversed by the twisting, pot-holed two-lane blacktop of old U.S. Route 119. The disconnected sections of four-lane highway are symbolic of the billions of Federal dollars invested over the past 20 years in development programs aimed at poverty in Appalchia, a keystone of President Johnson's vision of a Great Society. Law Signed by Johnson Today the frequent breaches in the highway are testimony to the unfulfilled promise of the Appalachian recovery and development plan that attracted more than $15 billion to the region, which includes 20 million people in 13 states.

Hubert Green, an almost forgotten player on the PGA Tour, has changed his way of dressing and changed his way of swinging. This was all done recently to change his way of finishing in tournaments. It began to pay off today as the 38-year-old Green moved to a three-shot lead over Lee Trevino in the third round of the 67th PGA Championship. Shooting one-under-par 70 at the wind-swept, dry Cherry Hills Country Club course, Green had a seven-under-par 206 for 54 holes to give himself a big lead going into the final round of this fourth and final major tournament of the year.

I will maintain that the artist needs only this: a special world to which he alone has the key. - Andre Gide JUST as our historical beginnings are utterly mysterious - why are we born? why when and as we are? - so too are the beginnings of works of art and of artists. Conception (in contrast to the fully public fact of birth) suggests not only the unknowable but the forbidden: our birth dates are matters of public record but our dates of conception are permanently shrouded in mystery. Consciousness dominates our thinking about works of art as well as artists even as we know that the genesis of any creation (in contrast to its execution) must derive from unconscious sources.

The Edinburgh International Festival, which starts today and runs until Aug. 31, is the biggest arts bonanza in the world. Now in its 39th year, it continues to draw a glittering array of artists and large crowds of visitors to its stony, bright, castle-dominated city. For example, this year's program includes a Japanese ''Macbeth,'' a South African ''Miss Julie'' and the Moscow State Circus. But the festival also attracts controversy and headlines; and a month before this year's festival was due to open, its director, Frank Dunlop, put the cat among the pigeons by saying at a news conference that the event had to have a secure future and that ''it really can't go on being kicked around like a football.'' The result: a bitter backlash from Edinburgh District Council's ruling Labor Party majority and hints that, if Mr. Dunlop were unhappy, he should go. Mr. Dunlop, with his second festival just about to open, has no intention of going. But his off-the-cuff remarks highlight the financial-political problems the festival faces and the slight question mark that hangs over its future. The festival's annual grants currently total $1.75 million, of which $840,000 comes from the Edinburgh Council, $625,000 from the Scottish Arts Council and the rest from private sponsors and donors.

THE Seagram Building is one of the jewels of Park Avenue - a sleek Mies Van de Rohe skyscraper of bronze and glass. At its epicenter is Edgar M. Bronfman, chief executive of Seagram Company Ltd. and son of its founder. But Seagram, the world's largest distiller, is finding liquor demand plummeting in the face of health concerns. And Mr. Bronfman, corporate scion of one of the world's wealthiest families, must now scramble to keep the business growing for the next generation and beyond. Ironically, Seagram, a name synonymous with liquor in 175 countries, earns more from its investments than from distilled spirits. Thanks to Mr. Bronfman's abortive 1981 raid on Conoco, Seagram has gained a 22.5 percent stake - the biggest minority position - in DuPont, that battle's ultimate victor. This stake provides nearly 75 percent of Seagram's earnings and, more importantly, is seen as the key to its future. Indeed, when asked what Seagram was doing to offset the drop in liquor consumption, Mr. Bronfman answered with one word: ''DuPont.'' ''The Bronfmans feel that distilled spirits is not going to make them terribly wealthy from here on and they are trying to locate the thing that will,'' said Arthur Kirsch, an analyst with Drexel Burnham. First Boston's analyst Martin Romm is even more blunt: ''The liquor business has dried up.''

VIRTUALLY ignored for many years, V-J Day is being recalled once again throughout the nation as the 40th anniversary of Japan's surrender to the Allied forces nears. The surrender, on Aug. 15, 1945, brought an end to World War II. Today, for the 25th year in a row, the village of Moosup in the town of Plainfield will commemorate the victory in Japan with its traditional parade. In what is believed to be the only celebration of its kind in the country, several thousand people will take part in the parade, which will start at 1 P.M. at the Riverview restaurant and end about two hours later at the Godreau McMahon American Legion Post 91 in the heart of the village.

A certain air of ruddy self-confidence has long been one of President Reagan's patented assets. Last week he dispensed some Reagan-brand optimism as he prepared to head for California for vacation. He dismissed the cancerous pimple removed from his nose as a minor problem, appending a seasonal warning to fellow sunbathers. His skin cancer, he advised, was a cost of overexposure to the sun and his vain urge for ''a coat of tan, dating back to my lifeguard days.'' On substance, the President gave a litany of sunny news from low inflation and a strong job market to bright possibilities for arms control and no dark clouds of a tax increase to ''slow us down.'' Apparently advised by his political doctors that his legislative record this year required new promises of potency after Labor Day, Mr. Reagan vowed once again to conduct a vigorous offensive for his tax revision proposal. He again warned Congress he would have his veto pen ready for budget-busting money bills, though despite his threats he has used the veto much less than his predecessors. In a bold-sounding but modest assessment, the President declared that ''1985 is shaping up as a year of progress.''