News FAQ: Ed Koch Passes Away at 88

Ed Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989 and is credited with delivering the city from fiscal insolvency, died last week. Here are some questions people have about the former mayor:

Are you telling me that Ed Koch, the guy from that Beastie Boys song, died?
Yes. He was also mayor of New York for 3 terms.

How did Koch earn the moniker ‘New York’s Mayor’?
That is not a moniker. Koch was, in fact, New York’s mayor.

Did Koch die on February 1 to avoid paying rent?
Koch died of heart failure after being admitted to the hospital several times in the past six months.

The AIDS and crack epidemic were plaguing New York during Koch’s tenure. I wish he had better friends.
While there is debate over the extent to which these problems were caused by or made worse by Koch, it is probably unfair to characterize AIDS or crack as the mayor’s friends.

Didn’t he have his jaw removed a few years ago?
No. While Ed Koch reviewed movies, you are confusing him with Roger Ebert, who reviewed movies and was never the mayor of New York.

Wait, does this mean everything dies? Like, puppies, and elephants and...oh, my God! Does this mean I’m going to die?!!?!
Yes. Mortality is a simple reality of life. We’re sorry you had to find out this way.

OH GOD, who will mayor be of New York?
New York currently has a mayor: Mayor Bloomberg. He is not dead. That was also a grammatically incorrect way of posing that question.

Mayor Koch was famous for supporting gay and lesbian rights, wasn’t he?
Yes! How astute and knowledgeable of —

So, he went to Hell, then.
Goddamn it.