my thoughts on Mayor Ed Koch

[flabbybody]

I'm trying to sift through the current love fest going on right now with his passing. Who remembers New York City in the 1980's ?

You could not ride the subway after 10 PM without fear of being mugged.
As soon as you drove across the Queensboro Bridge (now named after him), your car would be descended upon by scores of squeegie men who would squirt cleaning fluid on your windshield even if you begged them not to. If you didn't give them money they'd curse you out.
When you went to a bank ATM, homeless aggressive panhandlers would ask you for cash.
Taxes kept going up and cops were nasty.
ahhhh, the good old days.
Oh yea, he was a high profile gay man who denied his sexual orientation to his dying day. As mayor he'd have women friends go to restaurants and movies with him to perpetuate the scam..... this in the largest gay city in the world !!!

Guess he was a decent guy. But I'd like to see a more honest appraisal of his legacy.

[Stavros]

I don't know enough about the details but I am old enough to remember when John Lindsay was Mayor of a dying city as high taxes (presumably both City and State) drove businesses out of the Big Apple and into New Jersey and Connecticut. On my first visit to NYC in the summer of 1983 I was so convinced I was going to be mugged I had all my cash and traveller's cheques (I didn't have a credit card in those days) inside my trousers. Because I decided to take the cheap route from JFK on the subway to Manhattan I was heading through Queen's to the Lower East Side and realised after a while this might not be a good idea, having arrived at 10pm. There was a Black man, possibly a vagrant, who was standing at the front of the car by the driver's cab who appeared to be rubbing his cock against the frame, and mumbling to himself but was otherwise inoffensive (!). Around Times Sq and 42nd St there were lots of porn shops in those days and peep shows and what looked like Latino youths hanging around at night wearing either bandannas or hairnets (never got that), and I did see someone being roughed up by the cops in the bus station, but once I got used to the place it was not much different from London and I relaxed, although I did what I did in London which was wander around the city at all hours of the day and night, without incident, maybe I was just lucky. I stayed at the Y which was stuck between Central Park West and the Lincoln Centre (I think around W62?) but is no longer there, and I loved NYC then as I always have done.

Returning to NYC after a trip around the US 6 weeks later, I was walking up 6th Av towards Columbus Circle and realised the man in front of me had a gun holster on his hip -at that very moment he whipped out the gun and held it in front of a young man heading our way, and shouted Freeze! but I don't know what happened next as I turned and ran. Was it a robbery? A policeman enforcing a spot check?

I once discussed with a transexual friend of mine the difference between the 1980s and the post 9/11 years, the disappearing Black community, the Disney-fication of Times Sq, the relative safety of New York at night; the transformation of the Lower East Side -I still recall the article from the NYT that summer of '83 describing the drug dens of Avenue B- and she said 'New York has lost its decadence'...maybe the crucial point is that few outsiders who are not also in possession of a great deal of money can simply move to Manhattan; I have heard that the costs of accomodation have spread into Brooklyn too...

Cities change, New York has changed in profound ways as has London, but it still remains one of the most exciting places I have ever been to. Perhaps Koch began something that Giuliani 'finished'...?

[Dino Velvet]

As an LA guy I say RIP Ed Koch. He was always nice on the TV. Wish he could trade places with Villaraigosa.

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site200/2013/0108/20130108_021326_do08%20charlie%20sheen%20antonio%2 0villaraigosa%20party_300.jpg

[fivekatz]

If Ed Koch has a dark mark on his legacy it would be the obvious one of being a closeted man who until he was no longer running for office supported very homophobic positions.

HIs run as mayor of NYC was difficult, the city was going through difficult times and even in the best of times it is a challenging place to govern and can't be governed without both shortfalls in achievement and distortion of your incumbency. Rudy G who had a mythic run as mayor can not escape negative critique upon close inspection of his administration as mayor of NYC.

Ed Koch was an engaging personality who steered NYC through some very tough times but if I had to guess if he had regrets it was the closet he chose to live in and that he turned a blind eye to the shabby treatment of members of the LGBT community.

But on the whole he was a fascinating human that accomplished much and should on balance considering none of us are perfect should be remembered as a good man with the frailties that tend to incumber all of humanity.

[Prospero]

Interesting reflections by Stavros. In summer 2001 I was making a documentary about New York and talked to cops there about the falling crime rate. They were very cynical about Giuliani's achievements. They figured he just pushed it out of manhattan to the other boroughs.

But on Koch... well from a distance he seemed likeable wheras Giuliani didn't.
I think Bloomberg is a far better mayor than either.
But Fiorella LaGuardia... now there was a man.
Lindsay was good looking.

[fred41]

As many have said - Ed Koch was a very likeable fellow ...and often that is enough in a politician, that is , until something actually needs to get done.
I liked Koch and remember seeing him on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach. You could run into him almost anywhere in the city. He would always wave and yell out "How am I doing?" If a police officer was wounded,he would be at his bedside...and it looked like he wanted to be there - the concern seemed real.
He was a tireless promoter of both self and the city he loved.
It is true that crime and filth were rampant, but that was also true of many of the nation's other large cities at the time.
But by his final term it was time for him to go...the corruption around him was becoming too much (although personally-he remained untinged by it)...
...and you can't cover up urban blight behind ridiculous fake windows with fake flower pots like he did.
But again...I liked the man.

R.I.P...Mayor Koch.

[Stavros]

Interesting reflections by Stavros. In summer 2001 I was making a documentary about New York and talked to cops there about the falling crime rate. They were very cynical about Giuliani's achievements. They figured he just pushed it out of manhattan to the other boroughs.

But on Koch... well from a distance he seemed likeable wheras Giuliani didn't.
I think Bloomberg is a far better mayor than either.
But Fiorella LaGuardia... now there was a man.
Lindsay was good looking.

I don't know how much the Mayors have changed New York or how much it has been economics/global finance and social change. NYC is still the centre of international finance, one of the most cultured cities in the world, diverse, exciting, challenging -but in some of its aspects its changes have been mirrored in cities like London and Paris. It may be that the overhaul of NYC's housing problems was something Koch began -there were areas of the city which were run down, dilapidated and maybe always had been, particularly on the lower east side. These days some of the run down areas, like the Bowery have become gentified as an increase in the population and the demand for quality housing has moved into areas that were once undesirable -these days Hackney, in London, which used to be a no-go area for people with money, is as expensive as other parts of the city, in fact I doubt there is anywhere that still has cheap accommodation.

The streets of New York appear quieter -there used to be street musicians but I don't recall any from my last visit; the hookers that you could find all over have mostly gone; the internet has made porno cinemas redundant; and the decadence of the city went with the impact of HIV/AIDS along with the discos with back rooms and the gay bathhouses. But these are just impressions.

[Queens Guy]

Maybe Ed Koch wasn't gay, after all. Maybe he was asexual. Some people are.

In the age of stalk-a-razzi and cameras on every cell phone, and bloggers devoted to 'outing' closeted gays, especially politicians who vote against the interest of the gay community, there was never a rumor about who the other man might be.

[Ben]

Maybe Ed Koch wasn't gay, after all. Maybe he was asexual. Some people are.

In the age of stalk-a-razzi and cameras on every cell phone, and bloggers devoted to 'outing' closeted gays, especially politicians who vote against the interest of the gay community, there was never a rumor about who the other man might be.

Maybe he was gay. It certainly sounds like he was... and hid it for a slew of reasons. And didn't address the rampant spread of AIDS within New York when he was Mayor. For fear, I think, of being outed.

[flabbybody]

Stavros poses the ultimate question. Do mayors, governors, presidents, or prime ministers actually make a difference... Are they simply individuals swept along by economic and social changes that would occur regardless of who's in charge at any given moment in history?

[NYBURBS]

Stavros poses the ultimate question. Do mayors, governors, presidents, or prime ministers actually make a difference... Are they simply individuals swept along by economic and social changes that would occur regardless of who's in charge at any given moment in history?

That is a good question, and the answer probably lies somewhere in between. They have a forum to help focus the public's attention, and they have some degree of power to steer an issue in a certain direction. However, they are also prisoners to the passions of the day, and even if they are not concerned with possible backlash from the electorate, somebody else whose vote or consent is needed probably is concerned. They are also victims to circumstance at times, though a good leader can probably take advantage of a situation to either minimize or maximize the impact it has.

As to the original post, I remember him as a colorful figure. I didn't much care for his zealot like advocacy of all things Israeli, but overall he struck me as being a decent guy.

[Prospero]

Koch has gone down in my estimation after I read last night that he actively campaigned for Bush.