Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue is the largest synagogue in the world, and it needed practically every one of its 2,500 seats to accommodate the crowd attending the funeral services of former Mayor Ed Koch on Monday morning. Koch, who served three terms as mayor from 1978 to 1989, died on Feb. 1 of congestive heart failure. He was 88.
After some opening remarks from Koch’s family members–he was never married and had no children–Mayor Michael Bloomberg, standing at the podium beneath the soaring impressive arches with Koch’s coffin nearby, delivered the eulogy.
Koch, Bloomberg said, “restored the arc of our city’s history. He reminded us why we love New York,” inspiring us “to fight for it.”
“There is no doubt that Ed is beaming, looking down at all of us assembled here,” Bloomberg continued, and it was quite a gathering to see, including two former mayors–Rudy Giuliani and David Dinkins–Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, former Gov. George Pataki, Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Jose Serrano, community activist Richard Green, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, to mention but a few notables.
Former President Bill Clinton, interrupting his trip to Japan, was there to represent the Obama administration, he said in his address to the congregation. He thanked Koch for all of his support, particularly his endorsement of Clinton’s wife, Hillary, in all of her campaigns. “We miss you so much because we all know we are doing a lot better because you lived and served,” Clinton said.
Other speakers listed on a very simple funeral program were Ambassador Ido Aharoni, consul general of Israel in New York; James Gill, John LoCicero, and Diane Coffey. Senior Rabbi Dr. David Posner officiated and reached poetic levels when he said of Koch: “He is with us even now even though the snows of many winters are now destined to cover his grave.”
No doubt Koch would have relished–and expected–all of the praise that has been summoned since his passing. Even who often locked horns with the brash, combative mayor found good things to say.
Upon hearing of Koch’s death, the Rev. Al Sharpton told reporters that he had mixed feelings about Koch. “He had me arrested in 1978 and that was the first time I was ever arrested,” Sharpton said.
But over the years, Sharpton continued, “He gained the respect of those who disagreed with him … and he never patronized you. He was an authentic and straightforward leader.”
And also a “leader” who spoke and did exactly as he felt, much to the chagrin of the African-American community, which was particularly upset when Sydenham Hospital was shut down in 1980. Many also took exception to his general disregard of the atrocities visited on Black citizens, and no reaction was more bitter than when the police gunned down Eleanor Bumpurs in 1984, not to mention his insensitive remarks over the Central Park Five travesty of justice or the attacks and murders of Yusef Hawkins and Michael Griffith.
It was all these troubling aspects, along with his so-so policy on affordable housing and the corruption that bedeviled his administration, that prompted the late Bill Tatum, then the editor and publisher of this paper, to begin his editorials on the front page demanding “Ed Koch Must Resign!” This declaration continued for more than two and half years. Eventually it would be the death of Hawkins, who was killed in Bensonhurst after being attacked by a gang of white youths, that would lead to Koch’s undoing in 1989 when he was defeated by David Dinkins.
Born in the Bronx on Dec. 12, 1924, Koch was the son of Polish immigrants. For two years, he attended City College but dropped out to join the Army, where he served for three years. Upon his return to civilian life, he earned a law degree from New York University in 1948.
His long political career evolved out of his membership and ultimate leadership of the Village Independent Democrats, where he first met Tatum. After a brief stint as a City Council member from 1966 to 1968, he was elected to Congress five times, representing the East Side of Manhattan, not far from Temple Emanu-El, Bloomberg reminded listeners.
Then came his three terms as mayor of New York City, virtually putting his individual stamp on the city after rescuing it from a financial crisis.
While several speakers noted his contribution to the desperate housing situation in the city when he assumed office, others remembered that it was under his stewardship that landlords ran amuck with their warehousing schemes. And many activists will remember him only as the point man in the white backlash that came on the wings of his mayoral victory.
To stay in office for three terms, Koch obviously recognized the expediency of modifying his liberal outlook that got him into office. According to Basil Wilson and Charles Green in their highly informative “,” Koch used the Forest Hills incident, where a low-income housing project was planned that would have, in his judgment, dismantled the Jewish community, to begin shredding his liberal credentials. “He emerged as the leader of the white backlash movement frightened by the changing racial makeup of the city,” the authors wrote.
Even so, there were significant Black leaders who, though admitting their mixed emotions about Koch, nonetheless offered praise for his love and commitment to the city, such as Rep. Charles Rangel and Sen. Bill Perkins. On Tuesday, in keeping with Koch’s Jewish beliefs, the family and others will sit Shiva. He was buried at Trinity Church Cemetery in northern Manhattan.
