Ed Koch couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate song to herald his final farewell to New York City.
Strains of “New York, New York,” the iconic ballad made famous by Frank Sinatra, rang throughout a Manhattan synagogue on Monday as the colorful former mayor’s coffin was carried past thousands of mourners, concluding a funeral that recalled the “quintessential” New Yorker’s famous one-liners and amusing antics in the public eye.
Koch died Friday of congestive heart failure at age 88. Outside on Fifth Avenue on Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayors Rudolph Giuliani and David Dinkins held their hands to theirs hearts. NYPD helicopters flew overhead and bagpipes wailed on the freezing February afternoon.
Recalling Koch as “brash and irreverent,” Bloomberg told the crowd who came to pay their respects that the man who steered the city through the 1970s and 1980s must be “beaming” from all the attention created by his death.
“No mayor, I think, has ever embodied the spirit of New York City like he did,” Bloomberg said. “And I don’t think anyone ever will.”
True to his take-charge nature, Koch even choreographed his own funeral. Aware of his impending mortality during his final days, Koch wanted to know everything about the particulars of the event, said Diane Coffey, his former chief of staff.
Coffey said her old boss was grateful when she told him last week that Bloomberg was planning to speak at the service. She said Koch insisted upon being buried in a cemetery “conveniently located near a subway stop” so that New Yorkers could come and visit his grave.
“We began talking about his death in the 80s and his plans for it,” Coffey said. “Who else plans every detail of a burial?”
The packed crowd broke into a spontaneous standing ovation as the coffin made its way out of the synagogue. Koch will be buried at the Trinity Church cemetery in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood.
His tombstone says he “fiercely” defended New York City and loved its people and America.
“We had such respect for him because of his outsized personality,” Bloomberg told the crowd. “Matched by his integrity, his intelligence and his independence.”
Koch led the city for 12 years with a brash, humor-tinged style that came to personify the New York of the 1980s.
The Democratic mayor is credited with helping save New York from its economic crisis in the 1970s and leading it to financial rebirth. But during his three terms as mayor, he also faced racial tensions and corruption among political allies, as well as the AIDS epidemic, homelessness and urban crime.
Bloomberg noted that the funeral was being held near “a certain East River span” — referring to the 59th Street bridge, which was renamed the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge in 2011.
Describing the bridge dedication ceremony, Bloomberg drew laughter from the crowd as he recalled Koch stood there for 20 minutes, yelling: “Welcome to my bridge!”
Noah Thayer, Koch’s grand-nephew, praised him as a “doting grandfather” who was devoted to his family. Thayer recalled fond memories of Koch attending elementary school soccer games and getting a manicure with his 11-year-old grand-niece.
“While he knew he was often portrayed as a lonely bachelor, it didn’t matter,” Thayer said. “He saw in his family only perfection.”
Former President Bill Clinton, who served as a representative for President Barack Obama at the funeral, said the world was a better place because Koch had “lived and served.”
“He had a big brain,” Clinton said. “But he had a bigger heart.”
Koch was a friend of both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and was helpful during her successful campaign for the U.S. Senate from New York, according to Koch spokesman George Arzt. Koch also backed Hillary Clinton in her presidential run.
The funeral was held at a Reform Jewish congregation on Fifth Avenue. Bloomberg is a member, as are comedian Joan Rivers and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
“I don’t want to leave Manhattan, even when I’m gone,” Koch told The Associated Press in 2008 after purchasing a burial plot in Trinity Church Cemetery, at the time the only graveyard in Manhattan that still had space. “This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me.”
Koch lost the Democratic nomination for mayor in 1989 to David Dinkins, but maintained that he was defeated “because of longevity.” As he put it: “people get tired of you.”
But as the votes were coming in, he said he told himself, “I’m free at last.”
In another tribute to Koch, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney will make a recommendation to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to rename a Manhattan subway station in his honor on Monday.
Maloney says she will propose renaming the subway station at East 77th Street and Lexington Avenue the “Mayor Ed Koch subway station.”
City officials have introduced legislation to officially rename the station.
(AP)
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21 Responses
Let him have it. This is the last bit of kovod he will get. He aint getting any in his next world, so may as well chap arein Ed now, coz the real world awaits you and all the fame and kovoid that you sought after in this world, is over.
Git Heshige…your hostility towards Mayor Koch is perplexing, as it is totally unexplained. I worked in his OMB for 10 years, and your description of his personality is petty, nasty and inaccurate as well…he cared well for people, and was loved and admired by all who worked for him. Or maybe hoshkofa is your point – I suppose you really believe that the character of an individual is determined by is hoshkofa..If only that were so. Shame on you
rabbi miller also had what to say about the rishus of Mr koch is it a shame on him for expressing himself thus? or is it a shame on u ?
YonasanW… Shame on you for writing “OBM”!! Blessed with what? His fierce fight to allow Chukai To’Avos? Etc.
He lived as a Goy, and died as a Goy. Read the above article
“Koch will be buried at the Trinity Church cemetery in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood”
Do I need to add anything?
The term is “Reform” not reformed as they have not reformed anything.
YonasanW you are a disgrace, but again your a liberal, Obama lover so expect no less. Liberalism is a mental Disorder.
No. 5: Don’t overlook the possibility that a “reformed” Jew is a formerly Reform Jew who has become frum.
OMB = Office of Management & Budget,
“Ba’Avod Re’Shoim Rinah!”
Koch, Bloomberg, and Clinton–What a perctly-matched trifecta.
YonasanW, the charecter of a person is determined by his hashkofo, absolutely! What is the day of judgement all about? What is judged? The hashkofo of the person. If the person was in favor of toievah, then Hashem will judge him harshly. Shame on me for standing up to what’s right, so be it
He may have been buried in a goyishe cemetery, and I don’t condone it, but the inscription on his tombstone reads, “My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew, I am a Jew.” (These are the same words that were proudly proclaimed by Daniel Pearl HY”D right before he was murdered.)
Say what you want about him, but I highly doubt he would have waged a war against MBP. He respected the rabbis and “black hats” too much to do that.
No Jew is perfect. I have a great deal of respect for Mayor Ed Koch and his loving being a Jew. I have no doubt he has some reward waiting for him in the Shamayim.
I don’t think anyone here knows what chelek in olam haba Mayor Koch is getting. I have heard R’ Avigdor Miller’s shiurim where he blasted Koch for marching at the head of certain parades, and yet the cheshbonos of who is a ben olam haba are complicated and we are not privy to such cheshbonos. I concede that there are certain rashaim gemurim that we know with certainty are burning for all eternity in gehenim, such as Hitler, but beyond the really evil people we just don’t know. There is a mix of bein adam l’makom and bein adam l’chaveiro, a person could have been an atheist, yet helped a lot of people. A person could have been not heterosexual and yet done lots of maasim tovim. There is also a concept of tinok shenishba. We just don’t know how Hashem rewards or punishes such a person. And to the person (#4) who commented about Koch being buried in Trinity Church cemetery, true, and yet I advise you to google a picture of Koch’s matzeiva. It has a magen david, the pasuk of shema (in hebrew and english) and the quote: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish” inscribed on it. Again, I am not saying Koch was a role model, a tzadik or that he isn’t getting gehinom. What I am saying is that life is complicated, sechor v’onesh is complicated, and we don’t know what reward/punishment Koch is getting (and anyone who claims otherwise is an idiot).
Irnd, I may agree with your opinion, but you facts are laughable. Yonason didn’t write “of blessed memory.” He wrote, “office of management and budget.” Same letters, different order. And they weren’t even next to his name. Be more careful. This makes you look bad.
And another comment to Irnd (#4): YonasonW wrote that he worked in Koch’s OMB = Office of Management and Budget. Don’t know how you came up with your interpretation of OBM, but boy are you daft.
lrnd, I assume you’re not too lrnd. You should focus more attention on reading comprehension. He didn’t say OBM, he wrote OMB. Try reading the sentence again, OBM wouldn’t even make sense in that sentence.
In case you’re wondering, OMB is a financial office within the NYC government.
# 5 they have reformed everything .Wheres his matzayvah with Shma on it ?? #4Dopus OMB is not OBM WOW how uneducated some are
It certainly is very sad, that a supposedly intelligent man, who claimed to be proud of being Jewish, chose to be buried, not only between goyim, but in a Church cemetery. But he lived like a goy and chose to be buried like one.
How sad! Certainly a man with his political clout could have gained entry to a Jewish cemetery, if not within Manhattan (I do not know if that exists), certainly within the boroughs of NYC. It is even sadder when we think of the ehrlicher Yidden who perished during the Nazi yimach shmom era,and did not have proper kevurah, and would have wanted to.
To No. 4 (IRND)
Its one thing to be a hateful and petty as Yonason correctly noted. However you combine those two attributes with simply being dumb. Yonason said he worked in Mayor Koch’s Office of Mangagement and Budget (“OMB”), not of blessed memory (OBM). Based on your comment, Koch was more of an ehrliche yid and mentsch than you will ever be.
We are not to judge him as that is the job of Hashem Yisborach. As far as getting buried at the the church cemetery, many a Yidden has been buried next to goyim certainly in all the military cemeteries all over the world. No one is complaining about that.
One more thing. My local Chabad rav told me that “Jewish” cemetery near me has goyim buried there that are spouses of Yidden. Money apparently ment more to the people that manage the place than halacha or right and wrong.
The man was a Tinnuk Shenishba (making sure not to use any roshei teivos). Who somehow managed to connect to the Kaddosh Dan Pearl and included his last words on his מצבה.
רב מילר is not here to tell us what his opinion is of Ed Koch the man, not the politician. But regardless, I learned that the דין וחשבון is done before ones maker- not רב מילר.