Ed Koch, mayor who became a symbol of NYC, dies

Ed Koch, mayor who became a symbol of NYC, dies

Ed Koch, the three-term mayor whose irascible exuberance and "How'm I doin'?" tagline made him synonymous with New York chutzpah, has died. He was 88.

Koch had been in and out of the hospital in recent weeks, battling a fluid buildup around his lungs that caused shortness of breath and made speaking difficult. He was moved to a New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia intensive care unit on Thursday afternoon and a spokesman confirmed the news of Koch's death Friday of congestive heart failure.

Koch had been "unconscious since late afternoon" but cardiologist Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum was by his side when he died at about 2 a.m. Friday morning.

Koch's sister Pat was also with him at the hospital for several hours on Thursday, spokesman George Arzt said.

A funeral service will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper West Side.

Allies and even enemies mourned the passing of the scrappy son of the Bronx who fancied himself "Citizen Koch" and is credited with leading the city away from bankruptcy.

"Through his tough, determined leadership and responsible fiscal stewardship, Ed helped lift the city out of its darkest days and set it on course for an incredible comeback," Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement issued Friday. "We will miss him dearly, but his good works - and his wit and wisdom - will forever be a part of the city he loved so much."

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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wrote that Koch "was more than just the sum total of his accomplishments."

"Mayor Koch was larger than life," she continued. "He stood taller than the bridge that bears his name. His sense of humor and tenacious spirit personified this town. Ed Koch was New York."

"He should be remembered as a man who did a lot of good things," former mayor David Dinkins, his onetime rival, told ABC News.

“I am terribly saddened by the passing of Mayor Ed Koch," Congressman Peter King said in a statement. "Ed Koch personified the spirit of New York. New York’s Mayor For Life is now New York’s Mayor for eternity."

As mayor, Koch was a quote machine who courted controversy, a self-proclaimed "liberal with sanity" who angered civil libertarians and civil rights activists.

"I'm not the type to get ulcers," he once bragged. "I give them."

He didn't mellow when his political career ended with his 1989 defeat at the hands of David Dinkins. Nor did he shy from the spotlight.

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He continued to write movies, do restaurant reviews, pen books, helm radio shows, appear in TV commercials and movie cameos. He even spent two years as the judge on "The People's Court."

He was unpredictable to the end.

In 1999, he wrote a book about former Mayor Rudy Giuliani entitled "Nasty Man." In 2004, he endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president; four years later, he was back backing Barack Obama and other Democrats.

In April 2008, Koch shelled out $ 20,000 to buy a plot in Trinity Cemetery on Riverside Drive, the only Manhattan cemetery that still had room.

"I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone," he said at the time. "This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me."

Edward Irving Koch was born Dec. 12, 1924 in the Bronx, the son of a Jewish furrier, but moved to Newark, N.J., as a youngster.

By 1941 he was back in the city, attending City College. After a three-year stint in the Army, he enrolled in New York Law School.

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He began dabbling in politics in the 1950s as a street stumper for Adlai Stevenson.

He joined the Village Independent Democrats and was elected district leader in 1963, defeating Carmine DeSapio, the last of old Democratic machine bosses.

Ray Stubblebine/AP

In this Nov. 8, 1977, file photo, Rep. Ed Koch, second from left, celebrates in New York with Bess Myerson, left, Carol Bellamy, center Diana Goldin, second from right, and her husband Harrison Goldin after being elected as New York's mayor.

Though he's most famous for being mayor, he served eight years in Congress before setting his sights on Gracie Mansion in 1977.

That year Koch was the dark horse in a crowded field seeking to oust hapless Abe Beame from City Hall. But on primary day, Koch lead the pack followed closely by then Secretary of State Mario Cuomo - setting the state for brief but brutal runoff battle that Koch won.

But Cuomo refused to quit and carried on as the Liberal Party candidate, over the objections of his own advisers - and the Democratic party.

And on the streets, some of Cuomo's supporters took the campaign to a new low by posting "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo" signs.

Koch won the battle - but just barely - and made a point of taking the subway to his inauguration. It was the start of a 12-year ride at City Hall that was as bumpy as a trip on the IRT before he overhauled subway service.

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New York was on the verge of financial ruin, and Koch reversed its fortunes by slashing city budgets, attracting new jobs, and going after federal funds.

Prying money out of Washington was not easy. And when President Ford balked at increasing federal aid, The Daily News published one of its most famous headlines: "Ford to City: Drop Dead."

"People need to remember that he was more than the guy with the quick comment and whatnot," Dinkins said Friday. "He is also the man that repaid the loan in the 80s when the federal government had first said they weren’t going to help us and he not only repaid it, but paid it early.”

New York City's bond rating bounced back, but Koch was accused of selling out to developers, ignoring the poor and the burgeoning homeless population.

Though he'd marched for civil rights in the South, he got poor marks for race relations. He broke the 1980 transit strike, marching across the Brooklyn Bridge, and was branded anti-labor.

He was a champion of gay rights, but his own sexuality was off-limits for discussion. And his public appearances with Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America, on his arm did little to banish the rumors.

"I have a social life," the lifelong bachelor once said. "But I don't discuss it."

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Throughout, his chutzpah and unabashed adoration of New York energized a beaten-down populace. His thumbs-up trademark and signature phrase "How'm I doin'?" made him famous around the world.

"I love being the mayor," he once said. "I want to be the mayor forever."

Re-election in 1981 was a cinch, but Koch soon found out there were geographical limits to his popularity.

Running for governor the next year against his old rival Cuomo, he made a colossal flub when he dissed the hinterlands.

"Have you ever lived in the suburbs?" Koch remarked about Albany. "It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life."

Voters in the suburbs and country were unamused, but it didn't do him any harm in the Big Apple. He breezed to a third term in 1985 - the last mayor to do so before term limits were enacted.

"Ed Koch has given New York City back its morale," the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said in 1984.

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Koch's final stint in City Hall was his roughest, his accomplishments eclipsed by racial tensions and a corruption scandal that nearly brought him down.

The rot was in the city's Parking Violations Bureau and the federal investigation led by an ambitious prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani brought down some of Koch's closest allies.

"I am shocked," Koch declared at least three times in a packed City Hall press conference after the scandal broke wide open.

While Koch was never personally implicated, then-Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin wrote acidly that hizzoner "worked incessantly at knowing nothing."

Koch long had an uneasy relationship with the city's black leaders, but the one-two punch of the 1986 Howard Beach race beating and the 1989 shooting death of a black teen in Bensonhurst proved fatal to his mayoralty.

He lost the 1989 Democratic primary to Dinkins, who became the city's first black mayor.

He walked out of City Hall on Dec. 30, 1989, to a bagpipe's strains of "Give My Regards to Broadway," with tears in his eyes, his thumbs in the air.

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"I leave with joy," he said.

Anyone who expected him to go quietly hadn't been paying attention. Koch was just as busy - and just as obstreperous - in retirement.

He wrote five political books, four mystery novels and a children's book. He kept his vocal cords limber with commentary on just about anything: food, film, politics.

He joined a law firm and succeeded Judge Joseph Wapner on "The People's Court." He hawked Snapple and even showed up on "Sex and the City."

Koch, who'd had a mild stroke while in office in 1987, suffered a heart attack in 1999 and had a bout with pneumonia in 2001. None of it slowed him down.

In August 2008, firefighters and paramedics raced over to his Greenwich Village apartment after he accidentally set off his Life Alert pendant in his sleep.

He jovially told the Daily News that he had not died.

"To the consternation of my enemies, I'm still alive," the then 83-year-old said.

A couple years later, as he marked his 85th birthday, a more subdued - but still feisty - Ed Koch acknowledged his mortality.

"I'm coming to the end of my life, whether it's another five years or so ... or less, or more," he said. "I do reflect on what I've done for the 85 years that I have been given so far. And I'm proud of what I've done."