R.I.P.: NYC Mayor Ed Koch Was Also Radio/TV Personality

Ed Koch

Ed Koch, the brash former New York City mayor who typically greeted constituents with a "How'm I doin'?" died Friday at the age of 88, according to CNN.

Koch died of congestive heart failure, spokesman George Arzt said. The former mayor felt very tired Thursday morning and was admitted to the intensive care unit, Artz said. Koch lost consciousness that afternoon and ultimately passed away around 2 a.m. Friday.

The lawyer-turned-public servant was a U.S. congressman from 1968 until he ran for mayor of the city in 1977 He served three terms until David Dinkins defeated him in a Democratic primary.

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Among his post mayoral years, Koch was a judge on TV’s The People’s Court for two years in the late ‘90s and had a talk show on WABC radio and for Bloomberg.

Andy Fisher, former newsman for CNBC, NBC Radio and WNEW 1130 AM, posted: 

“We lost a giant this morning. Former mayor Ed Koch certainly had a face for radio, and from soundbite to talk show, he was always entertaining on the air. He presided over New York City's financial and psychological comeback from chaos in the late 1970s, so he was a pretty good mayor by anyone's standards, although for a long time, as someone pointed out this morning, he did seem to have a "tin ear" when it came to the subject of race relations.”

Fisher recalls interviewing Koch during Liberty Weekend July 4, 1986, when President Reagan came to town to re-dedicate the renovated Statue of Liberty.

“I was a radio correspondent for NBC News, and Mayor Koch came to the press compound on the landfill for Battery Park City. I needled him about Liberty Island really being in New Jersey, and about his own origins in Newark, and, of course, he gave as good as he got. I tend to judge people by their senses of humor, and on that basis, I regard Ed Koch as the greatest New York mayor I can remember. 

I can't conceive of Michael Bloomberg standing on the Brooklyn Bridge asking, "How'm I doing?" I can remember John Lindsay getting huffy when he was reminded about calling New York "Fun City." You wouldn't dare try to have fun with Rudy Giuliani. Ed Koch was a gift to radio, to politics, and, most of all, to New York.”