Ed Koch

Ed Koch Mattered

Why They Mattered: Ed Koch(Politico) Dan Janison, resident wit of the New York City Hall press corps, once remarked that Edward Irving Koch’s most striking attribute was his propensity for underplaying his own genuine accomplishments at the expense of picking a fight or defending something indefensible. “The stuff he should be proud of, he isn’t, and the things he should be  ashamed of, he’s proud of,” said Janison. “He was unavoidable for comment.” The former mayor, who died at 88 last February, almost never talked about his heroic World War II service in combat against the Germans, or his transformational, long-term efforts to rehabilitate burnt-out apartment buildings in the South Bronx and Brooklyn, or his willingness to quietly listen to New Yorkers who accosted him on the Kew Gardens pavement to deliver finger-in-his-chest answers to his ubiquitous “How’m I doin?” query.