Ed Koch’s legacy: A safer, cleaner New York

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Yahoo News:

NEW YORK—Greenwich Village, with its historic brownstones and close proximity to Washington Square Park—one of the city’s most famous public spaces—has long been considered one of Manhattan’s most sought-after addresses.

But 35 years ago, the area, despite also housing New York University, wasn’t so nice. The park was the epicenter of New York’s growing drug trade—with dealers and their customers conducting illicit transactions from morning until night. The park’s famous arch—modeled after Paris’ Arc de Triomphe and a future backdrop to films including “When Harry Met Sally”—was covered in racist graffiti. And the ground was so littered with broken shards of glass that people in the neighborhood joked it was like living near an old bottling company.

“It was a disaster,” Joan, a 65-year-old Manhattan resident who declined to give her last name, recalled as she strolled through the now-pristine park Friday morning with her Labrador retriever, Charlie. “People avoided this place. You couldn’t walk through here without being scared, even during the day.”

It was a sentiment that defined New York at the time, as the city sat on the brink of bankruptcy and faced down a crime epidemic unlike any in its history. The summer of 1977 might have been the era's low point: Residents were on edge over a series of murders committed by a serial killer known as the Son of Sam, and New York was plunged further into chaos after a citywide power blackout prompted massive looting and riots throughout Brooklyn and the Bronx.

But that fall, Ed Koch, a wisecracking congressman and Greenwich Village resident known for his unbridled candor, won the city’s mayoral election—in part by promising he would bring New York back from the brink. That New Yorkers now live in one of the safest and most successful cities in in the world is in large part due to Koch having been one of the city’s greatest champions.

“He gave us back our morale, our pride,” Jack Lebewohl, whose family runs the 2nd Avenue Deli, one of the city’s oldest dining establishments, told Yahoo News.

 

The former mayor—who served three terms from 1978 to 1989, and who died Friday at age 88 of congestive heart failure—came to power in an era few would consider a golden age for New York.

Not only was the city in dire financial straits, but a bailout request from the federal government had been denied by President Gerald Ford and members of Congress. That prompted the New York Daily News to run one of its most famous headlines ever: “Ford to the City: Drop Dead.”

The rampant crime and the turbulent feel of the city was captured in films like Martin Scorcese’s “Taxi Driver,” in which production was repeatedly interrupted by the sirens of police cars responding to crime reports around Times Square and Hell’s Kitchen, where the movie was largely filmed.

In kicking off his bid for mayor, Koch spoke not just of restoring the city’s financial standing but of trying to change the city’s scary image. And he took that message to average people. He spent hours riding the subway throughout the five boroughs asking for votes—shaking hands in subway cars often covered from floor to ceiling in graffiti.

“How’m I doing?” Koch would ask, again and again, soliciting advice from people.

________

 

And now we see Bloomberg undoing his work...

[Valin]

Two From City Journal

 

Mr. New York

Tevi D. Troy

Ed Koch, 1924–2013

1 February 2013

 

In the Winter 2012 issue of City Journal, I wrote a reappraisal of Ed Koch’s mayoral tenure in New York City. Far too few serious analyses of his considerable impact on the city had been done, partly because of Koch’s nature: He was a character, a media celebrity, and always quick with a quip. Long before Google, Twitter, and cable news, Koch was ubiquitous in New York, dominating newspapers, radio, television, and even Broadway. He didn’t seem to worry that his self-promotion might diminish the dignity of the mayoral office; to Koch, what counted was advancing the city’s interests (and yes, his own).

 

Koch’s public savvy was a studied effort. Media guru David Garth trained him to speak to TV cameras in such a way that he appeared to be talking directly to voters, rather than just reporters. He supplemented his media skills with a number of unique characteristics: humor, self-described “liberalism with sanity,” outspoken Jewishness, and skill in navigating white-ethnic politics. All of these qualities came together to define Koch and enable him to do what he did.

(Snip)

 

&

 

Be Not Afraid

Clark Whelton

 

A speechwriter remembers Ed Koch

1 February 2013

 

It was Congressman Ed Koch who persuaded me to become Mayor Ed Koch’s speechwriter.

 

In November 1977, I was a staff writer for The Village Voice doing legwork on a story about a landlord who had set fires in his own properties, not for insurance but to drive out rent-controlled tenants. As I interviewed the residents, who had repaired their building and were now struggling against eviction, a woman handed me a file of letters and documents from their departing congressman, Ed Koch.

 

I read the file with special interest. Koch had recently been elected mayor and had just asked me to join his administration. I wasn’t sure what to do. I loved journalism, but I came from a political family—my grandfather had been the mayor of Boston—and I was drawn toward City Hall. As I read through the Koch file, I noticed that the congressman, unlike other public officials whose help had been requested, had given the beleaguered tenants specific advice on how to deal with city bureaucracies and navigate the courts. He had also sent follow-up letters, asking for progress reports. All in all, it was an impressive response, and it helped save the building. I decided to work for Koch.

 

(Snip)