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.
A lifelong bachelor, there were persistent rumors that Koch was gay. Some of them were typically homophobic. For example, when he first ran for mayor in 1977, his opponent in the Democratic primary was future New York Governor 
Mario Cuomo. During and after the election came rumors of Cuomo campaign fliers that read Vote For Cuomo, Not the Homo.
I’ve never seen any of those fliers, or even any evidence of them, and I don’t mean to saddle Cuomo personally with the charge of homophobia. But at the very least the story of those fliers is apocryphal. For even if they never existed in physical form, the phrase was nevertheless used as a verbal slogan against Koch at the time, and fondly recalled by bigoted opponents afterwards.
By and large, Koch refused to publicly discuss his sexuality, an attitude not unheard of for his generation. For example, former Brooklyn (and L.A.) Dodgers pitcher and New York native Sandy Koufax, also widely rumored to be gay, has also steadfastly refused to discuss the matter.
According to his New York Times obituary, Koch only ever publicly answered the question twice, when he claimed to be heterosexual in radio interviews. However, that may have been nothing more than a practical necessity for getting elected at the time. Usually Koch was just defiant. As he said in his 1992 memoir:
Whether I am straight or gay or bisexual is nobody’s business but mine.
For many gay men of the WWII generation (Koch was a highly decorated veteran who saw substantial action), this was a dignified way of dealing with the issue of their sexuality during an era when the popular culture treated their sexuality as a mental illness, and later a target of derision and sanctimonious pity.
Many, perhaps most New Yorkers who still remember Koch now simply assume that he was gay. But now that he has passed, I will do him the honor of not prodding.
Instead, I will celebrate the fact that American society has moved forward, thanks in part to politicians like him who had to wrestle with the homophobia that overwhelmed American culture during the 20th century.
Here in 21st century America, we have openly gay politicians in America. That was simply not possible during Koch’s career, even in New York City, arguably the most liberal city in America. But it is possible now, in part, because of select politicians and other civic leaders like Ed Koch who were (almost) unflinching in taking a dignified stance on the issue when that was far from popular.