Ed Koch

Ahhh, a quintessential New Yorker! He was 88 and died early this morning of congestive heart failure.

As Brigid just said "He's having a chat with Cardinal O'Connor", who he co-authored a book with in 1989, and which I read (it was quite good). UPDATE: My friend and business assocate Judy Anderson said exactly the same thing Brigid said when I spoke ot her about Koch!

Here's a picture of Koch, which I took at a conference in 2007 after briefly chatting with him, and which I mentioned in this posting in 2009 Ed Koch on Ed Koch. Cell phone cameras have improved a great deal since then!

At the conference Koch gave a very fine, very funny keynote speech - what I'm sure was a standard for-pay speech he frequently gave to groups (it was for a life insurance company), talking about New York, his opinions on things, and himself.

He brought down the house with the end of his speech, which went something like this -

He repeated again that he really wanted to be mayor of New York for life, and how disappointed he was when he lost the Dem primary to David Dinkins. He'd always maintained his apartment in "the Village" and he and some friends cleaned out his stuff from Gracie Mansion (the official NYC mayor's residence) and moved things down to his apartment.

As he and his friends approached his apartment, a guy on a bicycle recognized him and came over and started shouting "you were the worst mayor in the history of the city ..." and Koch looked at him and said, "Oh go, fuck yourself." And "I felt great - for the first time in 12 years I could say something like that." The whole place exploded with laughter.

 

 

Comments

[Dennis Cannon]

When I learned of the Mayor's passing today, I immediately thought of your described encounter at the Terrace on the Park and I had a good chuckle.