Ed Koch 1924-2013

Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch — who just a few days ago was still going, if a bit weakly — has died. The NYT has a very readable obituary, which notes,

Besides his sister, a former dean at New York University whom he saw regularly in later years, Mr. Koch is survived by New York itself, as an old friend put it a few years ago.

Koch’s generally successful tenure was buoyed by his outsized and quotable personality but stained by what could most charitably be called insensitivity to New York’s racial problems; to a distant observer that insensitivity sometimes looked more calculated. It’s odd to read again about the many scandals involving Koch’s associates that brought him down; that isn’t what sticks in memory nearly as much as Koch dooming his run for Governor by knocking upstate as too rural and Albany as devoid of a decent Chinese restaurant.

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One Response to Ed Koch 1924-2013

  1. Matt says:

    …Albany as devoid of a decent Chinese restaurant.

    That was certainly true of Albany when I lived there- 97-99. It also didn’t have any decent Mexican restaurants, but I can see how that might matter less to Koch. Over-all, it was a pretty barren place for restaurants, though it did seem to be _somewhat_ better when I was back to take the bar exam in ’07.

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