Results tagged “edkoch”

Yesterday, former mayor Ed Koch celebrated his 85th birthday a little early (it's December 12), with a party at the St. Regis Hotel. Guests included Mayor Bloomberg, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, former Senator Alfonse D'Amato and Dr. Henry Kissinger—check out this picture of Koch in a crown-like chair! He reflected on his time as mayor—"I thank the people of the city of New York for having given me their confidence and their trust and the opportunity to do what I loved so much"—and discussed his post-quadruple bypass diet (he needs to gain weight), "Ice cream, Peking duck, Peter Luger's steaks -- I'm doing it under doctor's orders! I'm doing terrific. I'm enjoying my life."

Andrew Cuomo came within a hair of missing out on President Obama's now famous public nod the attorney general in Troy on Monday because he was insistent on taking his daughters to school that morning. Good thing Cuomo made it to his unofficial canonization by Obama or else his assistant may have had no use for the anecdote. Instead, it was shared with both local tabloids in their respective Cuomo coming of age bios in this Sunday's papers. When Cuomo learned they were running late for the big Obama greeting, apparently the state's most popular Democrat said, "Oh no. I’m dropping the kids off at school. It’s what I do. And if we miss the president, we miss the president."

Ed Koch just loves his moments in the sun. A week after the former mayor was sharing about cursing out New Yorkers heckling him in the grocery store, last night he was going off about his wild hallucinations at Columbia Pres while recovering from his recent quadruple bypass surgery. Koch told a crowd at the 92nd Street Y Monday, ”I thought I was captured by Japanese terrorists...When they cut off my thumbs, I knew it wasn’t real because there was no blood and no pain. I was daydreaming. I apologize to the Japanese. I know they’re great allies. I’m only telling you what I experienced.” CityRoom says Koch also mentions the terrorists spoke to him with a Yiddish accent. It sounds like if you ask the Columbia doctor's "how he's doing" in terms of showing his gratitude for the intensive surgery, they'd say pretty well. Koch is taking his 20 doctors out to dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in Williamsburg tonight. (One declined because he's Kosher.) As for the 72 nurses and technicians who aided him, they got the gift of an obligatory read with Koch sending them one of the 16 books he's written.

Former Mayor Ed Koch showed that recent heart surgery hasn't affected his personality. According to the Post, Koch showed his spark at a breakfast fundraiser for Manhattan DA hopeful Leslie Crocker Snyder: "Recounting his first trip to the supermarket after leaving office, Koch said dozens of average citizens went out of their way to thank him for his service. Except one, who snarled, 'You were a terrible mayor!' 'And I say to him: "F--- you!"' Koch told the crowd." The 84-year-old opined about Big Apple residents, "We walk faster, we talk faster, we think faster... I’m a New Yorker and Leslie’s a New Yorker." And the former Mayor is also back to reviewing films for The Villager—he liked Whatever Works and Lorna's Silence!

More and more NJ schools are adopting dress codes, according to the Star-Ledger. For instance, after a year of Newark elementary and middle school students wearing uniforms, the district has decided to bring uniforms to high schools—an official said, "It decreased peer pressure of wearing designer clothes, they instead wore the color scheme." And another school board head said, "It allows the principal to walk out in the hallway (and) if they see anything other than a sea of blue, they notice somebody in the hallway that isn't supposed to be there." But the ACLU in NJ argues, "Dress codes and uniforms often deny students the right to express themselves. Our position is that the Constitution protects students' rights, including what they wear, not just what they say and what they write." Only around two dozen of over 600 NJ school districts require uniforms; the NJ School Boards Association's Mike Yaple said, "Some educators swear by the school uniform... But there's been research that says it doesn't lead to better test scores and reduced violence." In 1988, NYC Mayor Ed Koch asked a manufacturer to donate uniforms for a pilot program, prompting the Times to ask for books before uniforms (Koch pointed out they were a donation).

As Ed Koch awaits going under the knife for a heart operation in the next couple days, he has the same old playful, dark, New York sense of humor as ever when talking to reporters at his Columbia-Presbyterian hospital room. The former mayor said to the News, "Whatever God wants, God will have. If He wants me to hang around, I'll hang around. If He wants to have some legal [or political] advice, He'll take me." Koch was going in for routine angioplasty when doctors told him he would have to repair damage to his aortic valve stemming from a heart attack he had in 1999. Koch said he loves Columbia because it's the hospital where "the food is good" and added, "I'm looking at the Hudson - oh, wait a minute, Henry's going by... Henry Hudson. He's waving."

Former mayor Ed Koch is nothing but prepared: The NY Times and NY Post report how the outgoing octogenarian has his tombstone ready and engraved. He already has a plot at Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights and the tombstone will read: "EDWARD I. KOCH Mayor of the City of New York 1978-1989," plus slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's words before he died, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish," a Jewish prayer ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One") and the epitaph he wrote—"He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York, and he fiercely loved its people. Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II."

A court ruling has decreased the city's liability in thousands of sidewalk-injury cases where people have sued the city after stumbles in areas with defects that had already been brought to the city's attention. The ruling says that maps made by a company hired by trial lawyers to denote every bump and bruise that pedestrians have come across will not carry weight in the suits because the maps are inaccurate and unclear. With 5,000 maps a year, each depicting several city blocks marked with hundreds of symbols, the city said they ended up with "700,00 squiggles." This decision further lets the city off the hook after a 2003 ruling moved the burden of injuries over to property owners, a move that has saved the city $13 million a year in lawsuits. Fred Kent, the president of the Project for Public Spaces, said, "Is the pothole guilty for trapping you and making you fall? Or are you guilty for not paying attention?” And lauding the court's decision was the first mayor to suffer an increase in payouts due to the maps, Ed Koch. He told the Times, “Hallelujah for the current decision. The money that’s paid out by such claims, which in my judgment are not worthy in many cases, is what deprives the city of spending money on matters that really are needed for the entire city.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is currently holding a press conference declaring her support for the mayor's proposal to extend term limits. Her announcement ends Quinn's remaining mum on her official stance since Mayor Bloomberg announced his intentions to maneuver for a third term bid almost two weeks ago. It also reverses the vow she made last year to uphold the two voter referendums in support of term limits.

City Councilman Charles Barron has extended an invitation to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop by City Hall while he's in town for this week's UN summit. Barron has a history of wooing controversial world leaders, having brought Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe by the city's chambers in 2002. Barron's latest invitation has raised the ire of other local politicians like Peter Vallone Jr., who told the Daily News, "If he wants to invite despotic dictators, he should invite them to his own house. They don't belong at the home of democracy in New York City." Barron clearly doesn't see Chavez in the same light calling him "a shining example of a humanitarian." The controversy even got the fiery of late former mayor Ed Koch into the discussion, saying, "Barron has a right to invite anybody he wants, and everybody else has a right to moon him."

After Ed Koch said he was supporting Barack Obama for president because Sarah Palin scares him, Koch has been hearing from some of the folks who subscribe to his commentary via e-mail. The former mayor shared some of the missives he received--plus replies he's sending--with the NY Times(which incidentally is one of Koch's most trusted news sources!).

Ed Koch is in full crotchety, old man mode! After saying Palin scares him earlier this week, the former mayor was in fine form on CNN. The Observer recounts his exchange with anchor Carol Costello, who first said his comments that Palin was "plucky" and "perky" might be viewed as sexist. To which he replied, “Oh please. Wow. It’s ridiculous. I mean you can’t compliment someone by saying they’re perky anymore? Plucky is a compliment.” Then while arguing about the anecdote of Palin trying to fire a librarian who wouldn't ban books, Angelo said CNN found it was not true and he said, “It’s disputed. But The New York Times has not retracted it." Angelo insisted CNN found it wasn't true, leaving Koch to defend the Old Gray Lady, "Well you’re not better than The New York Times."

Former NYC mayor Ed Koch, who supported George W. Bush in 2004 and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, has announced he's endorsing for Barack Obama. He told NY1, "Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs." Politico's Ben Smith asked Koch why Obama, and the 83-year-old said, "Any time someone goes to the library and says, 'I want to ban books,' and the librarian says 'no,' and she threatens to fire them -- that's scary." (Smith adds that the McCain-Palin camp says the VP candidate was just posing a "rhetorical question"). Koch also said he'd be happy to campaign for Obama.

New York business leaders have been scrambling recently to find a mayoral candidate for 2009 who would be as business-friendly as billionaire Michael Bloomberg has for the last seven years. Today the NY Post reports that they may have found their man for '09: Mayor Bloomberg.

Fleet Week is upon us, but it's smaller (that's what she said!) than past year's events because nuclear-powered craft is not allowed in the harbor. Therefore, many of the Navy's newer aircraft carriers aren't here.

As Senator Hillary Clinton ignores calls to drop out and gets ready for a likely West Virginia primary victory, Politico's Ben Smith reveals one funny suggestion from a NYC politician: Clinton should run for mayor in 2009.

Yesterday Governor David Paterson proclaimed "We're going to work together." And one good example of the high feeling of unity at Paterson's swearing-in was former mayor Ed Koch and the Reverend Al Sharpton's exchange.

Frank Bruni, the Times’s top restaurant critic, awards the new 2nd Avenue Deli one star today, which isn’t bad considering it is, despite all the history, still a deli. We popped in there for food and photos just before it reopened at its East 33rd Street location and found the sandwiches (pictured) as monumental as ever; a second visit turned up no sign of the free bowl of gribenes (chicken skin fried in chicken fat) that the owner Jeremy Lebewohl had promised free at every table.

After the stunning Giants' Super Bowl win, people cheered like they hadn't seen a Super Bowl victory in 17 years! Throughout the city, folks were stumbling onto streets, chanting the names of players and even getting arrested.

Rudy Giuliani's poor showing in the presidential campaign has plenty of people giving their opinions on why it all went wrong.

The City Council voted 40-3 to end the tax breaks Madison Square Garden has enjoyed since 1982. It's estimated that the city has lost almost $300 million in potential revenue in subsidies to the "World's Most Famous Arena."

Governor Spitzer may have identified himself as a steamroller in his attempts to accomplish certain executive tasks, but he's got nothing on the former federal prosecutor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. The NY Times has a colorful profile of the the former Mayor as a man who used his offices as bludgeons, crushing anyone who crossed him.

The Jews of New York (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., WLIW; Thursday, 9:00 p.m., Thirteen) Ed Koch, Russ & Daughters Appetizers, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the creative team behind Fiddler on the Roof are profiled in this one hour overview of the history and impact of the Jewish community in New York. The show has some great New York City history content, although it seemed like it should have been a bit longer so they could get a bit more in. Still it is an interesting look at the contributions of New York’s Jewish community through the years.

Mayor Bloomberg continued his whirlwind tour through Asia yesterday with a stop in Bali, Indonesia to talk to United Nations officials about the global effects of climate change. This is after a foray to China, that brought to mind Ed Koch's Beijing inspiration for bike paths in NYC to The New York Times' Clyde Haberman. Like NYC, Bali was the victim of a devastating terrorist attack that killed and injured hundreds of people.

Mayor Bloomberg will be speaking at a United Nations conference in Indonesia, but he made a stop in Beijing first. He said to the audience at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Some people believe that by mid-century, as [much] as 75 percent of China's population may be city dwellers. Even an occasional visitor to China, like me, is struck by this rapid urbanization. It is one of the largest internal migrations by people in...

"Sleight of hand," "litany of needless fights," "ugly racial polarization" - just some of the phrases in this week's New York magazine's cover story about Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor turned presidential candidate. Chris Smith's article serves as both refresher to New Yorkers about Giuliani's reign as mayor with some fun tidbits (did you realize that then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik commissioned 30 miniature busts of himself?) as well as a cautionary tale to non-New Yorkers....

Rudy Giuliani told the American public, via a sit-down with Katie Couric, that the story pointing out expenses for trips to the Hamptons - to see then-mistress Judi Nathan - were billed across a number of obscure city agencies was a "typical political hit job" and a "debate day dirty trick." He even called it a "false story," but Politco, the website that broke the story, pointed out neither Giuilani or his aides "have questioned...

Couples planning their weddings and receptions often face a dilemma with their guest lists. With relatives to consider and budgets to stay within, some send invitations to single friends without a plus one.

Brooke Astor's funeral was held yesterday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, at Saint Thomas Church on 5th Ave. and 53rd St. The lineage and personal generosity of Mrs. Astor and the array of famous attendees at her funeral made it a widely covered news event. The New York Times reported that officiants at the funeral requested that all cell phones be turned off at the beginning of the service, although a Gawker correspondent pointed out that this did not stop the woman sitting next to him from allegedly loudly typing away on her BlackBerry throughout the service.

Taking the offensive, Governor Eliot Spitzer said high and low that he's "happy to, going to, look forward to" testify to the State Ethics Commission's investigation, should they want his testimony. The Subdued Steamroller said, "If they call me, I'd love to, and even if they don't, I'd love to send them my statement just because this needs to be clarified and made perfectly clear." Is he taking Ed Koch's advice?