Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York City, died today at the age of 88.
It is often said that the second most important elected official in the country, after the President of the United States, is the Mayor of New York City. Mostly, this is said by people from New York City, but the claim is not without merit, and no one served that role with more panache, at least in my lifetime, than Ed Koch.
I have two distinct memories of Ed Koch. I saw him once on the Larry King show during football season when a caller asked if he was excited about the possibility of the Giants and Jets meeting in the Super Bowl. Koch scowled and said that those two teams play in New Jersey, and he couldn't care less about them. Loved it.
The other memory comes whenever I see the movie "The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three." The movie - and if you've never seen it, you should - stars Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw and it is about the hijacking of a NYC subway car and the demand for ransom from the City of New York. The Mayor of New York in the movie is played by an actor named Lee Wallace, and is a dead ringer for Koch. Watching the movie it is very obvious that the role was modeled after Koch. Funny thing, though, in looking up the timeline this morning, I see that the movie was made in 1974, and Koch didn't become mayor until 1977. So maybe Ed Koch modeled himself after the guy in the movie!
Anyway, they don't seem to make politicians like this anymore, so RIP Ed Koch.
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