The late Ed Koch

Last week THE HUFFINGTON POST responded to New York mayor Ed Koch's death with some laudatory columns and forums kept clear of comments criticizing him.  SALON, on the other hand, had some thoughtful and not uncritical pieces on him.  I liked Joan Walsh's discussion of the city's political and cultural shift between the John Lindsay era and the Koch era.

Speaking for myself, I always found Koch's in-your-face "How'm I doin'?" persona annoying.  He seemed to pitch all his statements to inattentive people.  I remember from when he was running against Mario Cuomo for state governor seeing an ad from his campaign attacking Cuomo, which made a point of mispronouncing his name "Mar-eye-o." Such aggressiveness must have annoyed a lot of voters statewide, because Koch blew a big early lead and Cuomo pulled an upset victory. (When Koch was elected mayor Cuomo was a pretty strong second, and I still think he would have made a far better mayor.)

"Gentrification" of Manhattan's better neighborhoods was perhaps the key New York event when Koch was mayor, and financially it saved the city, yet it was a mixed blessing. (It didn't help the growing problem of homelessness.) This trend was reflected in the rising profile of Donald Trump, with whom Koch had a famous falling out.  Koch called Trump "jerky," just about the first time I heard the word used that way.  Koch and Trump were bound to be fierce enemies because they had such similar extroverted personalities:  even New York wasn't big enough for both egos.  I remember seeing both of them on Phil Donahue's talk show in the 1980s and noticing that they were motormouths. (DONAHUE is one of the only things I miss from that decade.)

BTW, the other week in THE HUFFINGTON POST there was a report on Trump's latest pronouncement and someone wrote a comment: "That reminds me that I want to visit the orangutans at the zoo." I added: "And I want to buy a shag carpet." =)