Culture

Last week, I wrote a piece about why I was putting aside my usual hatred for the Baltimore Ravens and rooting for them against the San Francisco 49ers in yesterday’s Super Bowl. In addition to loathing 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh, who on the national stage last night lived down to my description of him as a spoiled bully-brat, I discussed my affection for the city of Baltimore, where I’ve lived since 2001. My love of Baltimore is of the warts-and-all variety.  And that was certainly the tone of my piece.  In part, I embrace Baltimore precisely because it is not the shining, glimmering city on the hill; because it is not the place that people from around the world want to take romantic trips to in springtime or find a magical experience during the holidays. Baltimore is very, very far from perfect.  Yet in many ways large and small, it often overcomes its drawbacks and deficits.  Living here can be frustrating, stupefying, needlessly expensive, and even sometimes dangerous.  But I also find it to be deeply satisfying.  I’m genuinely very happy to call Baltimore my home. The article got a lot of traction, at least for the standards of this site, receiving close to a thousand page views in just a few days.  And from what I can tell, most readers enjoyed it.  Just the fact that it caught fire indicates as much, and the Facebook clicker at the bottom of the page tallied more than 200 “Likes” at last count. However, it didn’t sit well with everyone. While Baltimoreans don’t put on any airs about their city being something it’s not, which is one of the things I really love about this place, they can also be a little defensive at times.  Understandably so, there’s a bit of an inferiority complex in the air, and even a touch of paranoia.

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch passed away early this morning at the ripe old age of 88. For many New Yorkers of my generation, the name Ed Koch was once synonymous with the word Mayor.  The 105th man to hold the office, his three terms began during my last year of elementary school at P.S. 24 and concluded during my last year of college. For my cohort then, Koch’s seeming omnipresence did not lead to intimate familiarity with his political policies; many of us were never old enough to even vote for him.  Rather, he was a popular culture icon.  He was an openly Jewish “character” whose quick wit, catch phrases, and brash persona established him within the bounds of  a sympathetic cultural trope: the mensch. And Koch certainly cultivated that image for his political gain.  However, I’ve also met many, many New Yorkers 10+ years older than me who really reviled  Koch.  He was beloved by many, but also quite divisive.  I never went back and studied the Koch administration, so in the end (or at least for now) I’ll leave that assessment to others. After his political career was over, however, the inveterate New Yorker remained a fixture in the city where he lived his entire life.  For example, his brusque yet jocular persona was well suited for his turn as a TV court judge.  He also hosted a talk radio show.  He even made recorded cameos at New York Rangers hockey games and in yellow taxi cabs. In all of these ways, Koch continued to cement his image as a quintessential post-WWII New Yorker.  He was pushy, humorous, and unabashedly “ethnic.” But as a cultural figure, he remained locked in the 20th century in one very important way.  Until his dying day, Ed Koch never came out of the closet.