page_title: Ed Koch
section_title: 1981 election and second term; run for governor
hierarchical_section_title: Ed Koch / Career / Mayor of New York City / 1981 election and second term; run for governor
caption_attribution_description: English: New York mayor Ed Koch
context_page_description: Edward Irving Koch was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989.
  Koch was a lifelong Democrat who described himself as a "liberal with sanity". The author of an ambitious public housing renewal program in his later years as mayor, he began by cutting spending and taxes and cutting 7,000 employees from the city payroll. As a congressman and after his terms as mayor, Koch was a fervent supporter of Israel. He crossed party lines to endorse Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York City in 1993, Michael Bloomberg for mayor of New York City in 2001, and George W. Bush for president in 2004.
  A popular figure, Koch rode the New York City Subway and stood at street corners greeting passersby with the slogan "How'm I doin'?" A lifelong bachelor with no children, Koch rebuffed speculation about his sexuality and refused to publicly discuss his romantic relationships. After his retirement from politics, he declared that he was heterosexual.
context_section_description: In 1981, he ran for reelection as mayor on both the Democratic and Republican Party lines; in November he won, defeating his main opponent, Unity Party candidate Frank J. Barbaro, with 75% of the vote.
  In 1982, Koch ran unsuccessfully for Governor of New York, losing the Democratic primary to Mario Cuomo, who was then lieutenant governor. Many say the deciding factor in Koch's loss was an interview with Playboy magazine in which he described the lifestyle of suburbia and upstate New York as "sterile" and lamented the thought of having to live in "the small town" of Albany as governor. Koch's remarks are thought to have alienated many voters from outside New York City. Among the events during Koch's second term as mayor include Frances Schreuder's arrest in 1982 at her home at 10 Gracie Square for her role in the Franklin Bradshaw murder of 1978 and her subsequent extradition to Utah where the crime occurred, the Brooklyn Bridge's 100th and appointing of Benjamin Ward as the city's first ever African American police commissioner in 1983, AIDS getting in the news as the city was (and still is) the first highest in the original three (with Los Angeles and San Francisco) descending order of reported U.S. cases, Bernhard Goetz's subway shooting in 1984 and its following year's (1985) newsworthiness, the United Nations' 40th and his last reelection, all in 1985.
  Koch often deviated from the conventional liberal line, strongly supporting the death penalty, adding 3,500 officers to the NYPD in the 1980s, and taking a hard line on "quality of life" issues, such as giving police broader powers in dealing with the homeless and favoring (and signing) legislation banning the playing of radios on subways and buses. These positions prompted harsh criticism from the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and many African-American leaders, particularly Reverend Al Sharpton.
  In 1984, Koch published his first memoir, Mayor, which became a best-seller and was later turned into an Off Broadway and later Broadway musical, Mayor.
caption: Koch giving interview to WABC-TV in 1981
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "New York mayor Ed Koch", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "AE-1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2016:04:14 17:45:16", "Image Artist": "Bill Golladay - Warner Robins, GA", "Image ExifOffset": "2142", "Image XPTitle": "[78, 0, 101, 0, 119, 0, 32, 0, 89, 0, 111, 0, 114, 0, 107, 0, 32, 0, 109, 0, 97, 0, 121, 0, 111, 0, 114, 0, 32, 0, 69, 0, 100, 0, 32, 0, 75, 0, 111, 0, 99, 0, 104, 0, 0, 0]", "Image XPComment": "[69, 0, 100, 0, 32, 0, 75, 0, 111, 0, 99, 0, 104, 0, 32, 0, 103, 0, 105, 0, ... ]", "Image XPAuthor": "Bill Golladay - Warner Robins, GA", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "0", "Thumbnail YResolution": "0", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4316", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9200", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "423A892D1C14495D970AFCD3FC143E87", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}