Making Light :: Right through the very heart of it :: comments

Right through the very heart of it

Former NYC mayor Ed Koch has died, on the very same day that a documentary about him opens. There’s something...

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #1 from Madeleine Robins

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:45:02 -0500

When I was a kid going to school on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village in the early-mid 60s, there were campaign posters for Koch everywhere (running for City Council, maybe?), so many that, a decade or so later, when he became mayor (and I was not living in the city) I saw photos of him and had a full-body flush of recognition. That guy! I remember that guy. How is it he looks exactly the same as he did when I was six? He was sort of the last of the quintessential New York Mayors (Lindsay was one too, but of an entirely different branch).

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Posted February 1, 2013 9:45 PM by Madeleine Robins

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #2 from Rick York

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:06:35 -0500

I can remember when we (NYC) were in one of our periodic dry spells and Ed Koch taught me how to shave without running the water in a constant stream.

I still - almost 40 years later - shave the same way. And, I can't leave a faucet running.

Ed Koch was and is my water conscience

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Posted February 1, 2013 10:06 PM by Rick York

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #3 from Serge Broom

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:11:34 -0500

Madeleine... Your school was on Bleecker Street? How cool. Why? Because Doctor Strange lived at 177A Bleecker Street.

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Posted February 1, 2013 10:11 PM by Serge Broom

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #4 from Erik Nelson

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:43:15 -0500

When he lost the election, the New York Times had a picture of a novelty store with all the Ed Koch rubber masks marked down.

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Posted February 1, 2013 10:43 PM by Erik Nelson

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #5 from Madeleine Robins

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 14:04:15 -0500

Serge: My school (Little Red School House) is on the corner of Bleecker and Sixth Avenue. Sadly, I never saw Doctor Strange in the neighborhood. That would have been cool.

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Posted February 2, 2013 2:04 PM by Madeleine Robins

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #6 from C. Wingate

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 14:55:25 -0500

He also died the day before the 100th anniversary of the opening of the present Grand Central Terminal.

Koch was even more iconically the mayor of NYC than Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore.

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Posted February 2, 2013 2:55 PM by C. Wingate

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #7 from Ginger

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 23:06:29 -0500

He was a complex man, a New Yorker through and through. I admire him for his refusal to comment on his sexuality, leaving everyone to wonder. Back then, that was a BFD. He could have done better, he could have been a lot worse, but he will always have my admiration and gratitude for his stand against bigotry.

He was a mensch, a haimischer mensch.

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Posted February 2, 2013 11:06 PM by Ginger

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #8 from John A Arkansawyer

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:48:27 -0500

Ginger@7: He was a complex man, wasn't he? Fell down totally on AIDS yet had a great record otherwise on on gay and lesbian issues. That's so the reverse of the typical trajectory.

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Posted February 4, 2013 7:48 AM by John A Arkansawyer

Right through the very heart of it -- comment #9 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:34:10 -0500

Madeleine:

Sadly, I never saw Doctor Strange in the neighborhood. That would have been cool.

I did once see Quentin Crisp in that neighborhood. He wasn't Doctor Strange, but my headcanon was always sure they were acquainted.

Not quite speaking of tangential subjects --

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Posted February 8, 2013 12:34 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden