Koch leaves them laughing at LIA
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch speaks during a Long Island Association breakfast meeting Thursday, April 15. It was the last such meeting for the LIA chief Matthew Crosson, who is stepping down. Credit: Howard Schnapp
It was to be Matt Crosson's hour, but Ed Koch stole the show.
The 85-year-old former Democratic New York City mayor had the crowd in stitches as he recalled his three terms - from 1978 to 1989 - running the Big Apple. Koch and former U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a Republican, made guest appearances Thursday at the Long Island Association's breakfast meeting at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury. It was the last breakfast meeting for Crosson, who has resigned as the LIA's president after 16 years.
But all eyes were on Koch, never known for diplomacy, much to the delight of the LIA crowd.
Koch's advice on upcoming elections: "Throw the bums out."
Did D'Amato agree? "The mayor was understated," D'Amato said.
Both Koch and D'Amato spent time bashing "special interests," mostly municipal unions, including teachers' unions.
Koch said when city transit workers struck in 1980, he walked along the Brooklyn Bridge with some 25,000 people crossing to Manhattan and urged them on. "I said, 'Don't let the bastards [strikers] get you down,' " Koch said.
Crosson remarked, "Not every politician has the chutzpah of Ed Koch."
"It's called cojones," Koch shot back.
The former mayor brought down the house with a story about the day after he left office.
He said he was walking to Balducci's for groceries while exchanging greetings with well-wishers. A young man on a bicycle, Koch said, yelled at him, "You were a terrible mayor." Koch responded in true Koch fashion: " -- you," he said.
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