The New York Times said he was “a 3-term mayor as brash, shrewd and colorful as the City he led.”
The larger-than-life Ed Koch would ask "How'm I doing?" to nearly anyone he met as he breezed through the streets of New York flashing his signature thumbs-up sign.
Bald and bombastic, paunchy and pretentious, the city's 105th mayor was quick with a friendly quip and equally fast with a cutting remark for his political enemies.
The mayor dismissed his critics as "wackos," waged verbal war with developer Donald Trump ("piggy") and mayoral successor Rudolph Giuliani ("nasty man"), lambasted the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and once reduced the head of the City Council to tears.
"I'm not the type to get ulcers," he wrote in Mayor, his autobiography. "I give them."
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