The Secrets Ed Koch Carried

Try this link.

Sorry, it’s paywalled

Didn't this all come out years ago or am I just imagining it?

We know.

Edward I. Koch looked like the busiest septuagenarian in New York.

Glad-handing well-wishers at his favorite restaurants, gesticulating through television interviews long after his three terms as mayor, Mr. Koch could seem as though he was scrambling to fill every hour with bustle. He dragged friends to the movies, pursuing a side career in film criticism. He urged new acquaintances to call him “judge,” a joking reference to his time presiding over “The People’s Court.”

But as his 70s ticked by, Mr. Koch described to a few friends a feeling he could not shake: a deep loneliness. He wanted to meet someone, he said. Did they know anyone who might be “partner material?” Someone “a little younger than me?” Someone to make up for lost time?

“I want a boyfriend,” he said to one friend, Charles Kaiser.

It was an aching admission, shared with only a few, from a politician whose brash ubiquity and relentless New York evangelism helped define the modern mayoralty, even as he strained to conceal an essential fact of his biography: Mr. Koch was gay.

He denied as much for decades — to reporters, campaign operatives and his staff — swatting away longstanding rumors with a choice profanity or a cheeky aside, even if these did little to convince some New Yorkers. Through his death, in 2013, his deflections endured.

That’s heartbreaking. Are we really heading back to a time where people have to live like this?

All knew when he was mayor.

A retired Sixth Precinct cop told me they were called to Ed's Fifth Avenue apartment. A hustler refused to leave. He was escorted out. Because he was a Congressman, report of the incident was "expunged from the records," meaning it never happened.

Great article. Takes me back when. Much of this like his beard Bess Myerson was all known. A lot of it is new to me, like the sad story about his ex Dick Nathan.

As another aging single homosexualist, this article hit me at a soft spot.

The Queensboro Bridge was renamed in his honor. Because of how he handled the AIDS crisis as a gay man, many are calling for his name to be removed.

AOC is HOMOPHOBIC for wanting to remove his name from the bridge!

The way he handled the AIDS crisis WAS shameful. That doesn’t erase everything else he did that was good.

Noone calls the triboro bridge the rfk. Noone calls the Queensboro the Koch. Heck i don't even call it the Queensboro.

r2 yes, one would think short bus would have eliminated the topic too.

you know, still I'm surprised it didn't garner protest.

glass closets.

Already discussed

Any pics of his boyfriend? Was he hot?

[quote] vote for cuomo, not the homo

In 1978, New York City was crumbling and the leading indicator of America's seemingly irreversible decline. The South Bronx, once a thriving middle-class neighborhood, had became a national symbol of urban horror. From 1960 to 1980, New York's murder rate tripled. Out-of-control spending had brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy, leading to a state takeover of its finances. The city's subway was plauged by crime, graffiti, and equipment breakdowns.

On July 13th, 1977, the city reached its nadir when a 24-hour blackout gave way to mass looting. Bushwick, a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, was practically burned to the ground.

Then in 1978, Edward Irving Koch became New York's 105th Mayor.

A veteran congressman from Manhattan, Koch's chutzpah was exactly what the city needed. A self-proclaimed "liberal with sanity," Koch took on special interests, he put the city's finances back in order, and showed that it was not only possible to govern but to have fun doing it.

Koch gained a national reputation by being the quintessential New Yorker: A Bronx-born ethnic whose disparaging remarks about life outside the city may well have sunk his 1981 bid for the governor's mansion in Albany. Long presumed to be gay, Koch kept mum about his personal life while pushing for social tolerance. His symbolic and practical role in the Big Apple's multi-decade renaissance is as huge as his appetite for publicity.

Since losing his bid for a fourth term in 1989, Koch has been a tireless dilettante. He's written books and hosted his own radio show. He was Judge Wapner's first replacement on the People's Court. He started a nonprofit to clean up corruption in the state capital. He turned his passion for film into an avocation as a movie reviewer, first for a community paper called the West Side Spirit, and now on the YouTube Channel, The Mayor at the Movies.

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down with Mayor Koch at his office in Midtown in April 2011 for a wide ranging discussion about rent control, the Tea Party, Donald Trump, his sexuality, whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo coined the phrase "Vote for Cuomo not the Homo," his memories of World War II, and how he "gave New York City back its morale" (as the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan put it).

Approximately 18 minutes.

Produced, shot, and edited by Jim Epstein, with help from Lucas Newman. Additional camera by Anthony Fisher.

R19 thanks. That's how I remember him. I met him once. I had no idea he was so huge. Yes, AIDS was his Achilles Heel. All heroes have one.

Did he ever partake in anal?

So I guess he let the yellow, mellow, after all?

Sooooo who’s had him?!