Blank

Charitable funding by announcer overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.

Lights in the studio come on - Wide shot Host Robert is seen Lipsyte sitting at rectangular table with former New York City Mayor, Ed Koch.

Host Lipsyte announces the three part series taking place over the next three nights where they explore Ed Koch, the Politician; Ed Koch, "The Personality"; and lastly a panel of New Yorkers who have kept a professional eye on him. Was he rejected by the City because he changed or the City changed?

Joe Klein standing in front of two big white doors opens them to reveal the Blue Room at City Hall, where Koch governed.

Klein leaning against the podium where Ed Koch stood (and governed).

Large crowd of noisy people on the street and police officers, Big black woman shouting and pointing.

tilt up on a construction site

Tilt up on awning of "the Bromley" building

Klein walking up the steps of brownstone.

wide shot interior either Grand Central Station or Penn Station. Train schedules above ticket windows, peds.

Klein standing on balcony in train terminal talking about Mayor Koch, a homeless man is seen standing in the corner behind him, his papers and things strewn about on the floor

Mayor Koch at podium in Blue Room shaking hands with var. officials, as others (members of the media) the room getting ready to leave.

Koch being introduced by an official, getting up and standing at podium.

Back with Joe Klein walking through commuter train terminal and speaking about Koch and his programs.

Klein outdoors standing in front of large body of water with airport in bkgd.

Koch in the middle of large crowd holding a hot dog, channel 7 mic pointed at him.

Joe Klein still at airport states: "(Koch) had a pinched pedestrian sense of the possibility of government. He never really allowed himself to dream on our behalf".

INTERVIEW, ED KOCH.

Ed Koch
I believe that joe klein is one of those columnists who will always be unflattering to whoever he covers, except when he becomes sycophantic. So as he has with some politicians, who catered to him more than I would. Now, I believe that if you look at my administration, you will find that when I came in to office, we were on the edge of bankruptcy. And that what I did was to make a structurally fiscally sound so that while we have fiscal problems, they're no different than other cities in America. I also gave it a spirit. When I came in, people were ashamed of being New Yorkers, because we were going hand in hand cup in hand, if you will, to Washington and elsewhere, for help. Now, New Yorkers, hopefully without arrogance are once again proud of who they are. It doesn't mean that we don't have problems and it doesn't mean that I couldn't have done more. But I did the best. I gave it my personal best, as they say, in sports.

Robert Lipsyte
Did you have a vision when you came in a vision of the city?

Ed Koch
Well, you know, people who know nothing about government, like joe klein will talk about vision. What does it really mean? My job was to keep the city alive. We had an unemployment rate that was three points higher than the national unemployment rate. There was more construction in the county, Morris County, New Jersey with 400,000 people then in the city of New Yorker, seven and a half million people in the year immediately preceding my being elected, I changed all of that. We now have the lowest unemployment rate in near 20 years. We development and construction to New York City is like what manufacturing is to Oshkosh or some other town. And I think that I did change New York City for the better. Now, what joe klein would like to equate for the better is some building program like LaGuardia Airport. Well, I have initiated a building program, which The New School for Social Research said, is building more housing at affordable rates, then the next 50 cities together?

Robert Lipsyte
Well, I think that there is a romantic vision of the statesman as a visionary leaving things behind even an unelected official like Robert Moses. And as you describe yourself, you see more like the paramedic who came in,

Ed Koch
well, that's not a bad analysis. It was triage. Some people come in and the plateau is there to build on. And then you can be more beneficence, and you can build the palaces that the joe klein would like to live in. I want to get off joe klein. Instead, what I had to do was a to see to it that essential services were brought back and made available here in the city of New York so as to keep business here.

Robert Lipsyte
And some of this was a surprise. I mean, you've said that coming into the job, you had no conception of what it really took to run the city.

Ed Koch
That's true. I mean, after I had been a congressman on the Upper East Side of Manhattan liberal, someone who voted for every social program, no matter what it cost when I was in Congress, and then when I became the mayor, I found out that all these programs cost money, and Congress was not providing the dollars and they had to be raised locally.

Robert Lipsyte
Well, some of the hard decisions that you made one trying to balance the budget in three years instead of four which cause convulsions. And along the way, closing Sydenham hospital

Ed Koch
Two different issues. So let me do different things. But both let me comment. Yeah, they were, with respect to making the budget imbalance a year ahead of time, I was told by the financial people that we would not be able to go back into the capital bond market for a period of three years after we had balanced our budget. So I knew that if we balanced our budget a year ahead of time to be back in the market a year ahead of time, why do you want to be in the market so that you can rebuild your infrastructure that means the sewers, this, the school buildings, the bridges, the capital program that every city must have, and we created a capital program to spend over a 10 year period $57 billion. When I came in, there was no capital program, actually. $349 million, half of which came from the state and the federal government. And today the capital program is in excess of $4 billion. It's one of the largest in the country. I mean, when you look at what we have done there, it is a miracle. Now I want to get to Sidon him for 30 years, the various mayor's beginning with Wagner and Lindsey and beame, they all wanted to close sydenham, they didn't have the guts to do it. They were all ultimately overwhelmed. When people said no, you can't close Sydenham, even though it provides the worst medical care and the saying of the cop would be if I get shot in the halls of Sydenham, get me out as quick as you can and get me over to Bellevue plus the fact that when we were closing it, we were opening up clinics, which is what the people needed and which saved lives not lost lives as Sydenham did and in addition to that, Health and Hospitals cooperation, which was then bankrupting the City, and today is far different, far better, not as good as it should be. But far better. They were spending on the worst medical care in the city, the largest amount per patient, and providing care that regrettably did not save the lives that it should have. So I did it

Robert Lipsyte
Fairly or unfairly, though, coming out at the other end, after having made these tough decisions, but people point to the fact that long term health care is being given in the emergency rooms of New York hospital, and the infrastructure is no better off The Williamburg Bridge. Just

INTERVIEW CONTINUED.

Ed Koch
Firstly, long term medical care. It's the state of New York that decides how many hospital beds we shall have. And it was the state of New York that sent to the city of New York, you have to close beds wasn't the city that closed beds, it was done at the order of the state of New York. And they when they did it, there was a surplus of beds, because they didn't know that the epidemic of AIDS would come along, which now provides an enormous wrenching experience the Occupy now maybe 10% of all the beds in the city, AIDS patients. And it's really an enormous wrenching experience, obviously, the compassion required for the AIDS patient, but the rest of the population has to be considered as

Robert Lipsyte
Bottom line is, you did a good job.

Ed Koch
Yes, I think so. Absolutely. I think that we did a good job. So with respect to h hc, it's a far better system today than it was when I came in. When I came in. None of the hospitals had a full term, which is three years accreditation. Now they're all accredited.

Robert Lipsyte
Now In terms of the fiscal changes you made, we talked about the two things one was fiscal and the other was emotional. You talked about giving people a pride in being nervous. But there was the perception as some of your critics have pointed out that you only gave some new yorkers the pride that you polarized the city?

Ed Koch
Well, I don't think I did I know that that's one of the charges made against me by some of the colonists, who didn't want me to be the mayor in the first instance. And so when they were unable to adequately fault my administration, in the three terms that I ran for re election, where as I think, you know, the first time I got about 50% of the vote, second time, we got 75% of the vote, and the third time I got 78% of the vote. So then they decided that the way to attack a white politician is to call him a racist. I believe that I did more in terms of jobs, in government and out of government for blacks and Hispanics than any Mayor before me.

Robert Lipsyte
Spiritually both both your friends and your critics say the same thing. He was the one white man in the city who talked back to black men.

Ed Koch
Well, is there anything wrong and talking back to blacks as in the same way you talk back to whites? I mean, for some people, there's something wrong with that. I believe you treat people equally, which is not what some of the advocates who sailed me wanted. They thought I should engage in racial quotas, preferential treatment, and I have never believed in that. I believed that what blacks wanted was equality, not preferential treatment and I provided equality in this town

Robert Lipsyte
in keeping talking about your critics, you're Of course talking about the media, voices in the media. And I wonder if one of the things that some of them loved you at the beginning, is they saw you lovely jack Newfield. Oh, that's ridiculous. He says that but you cannot. Well, he's established that he certainly wrote that way. I believe he wrote one article, let me finish but the point is That you were seeing in the beginning, perhaps incorrectly as a gadfly liberal reformer rather than a

Ed Koch
I continue to be and I am today. You still let me just I have you know anytime you make a statement that I don't think is accurate I'm gonna nail it down and show why it's not accurate. JACK Newfield didn't support me for mayor and 77 he supported Mario Cuomo, jack Newfield wrote one article that I can recall that was positive on me when I cleaned up the poverty programs. And I said at the time that if we had given to the poor, all of the money that we had provided for poor programs, programs for the poor over the last 20 years, the poor would be rich, they were being ripped off. But by changing those programs, I made an enormous number of enemies, because many of the people who are running those programs saw them as their political bases. And I said that's not what the programs were created for jack Newfield, who is obviously a good reporter, but a columnist, who is really a political person with an agenda, which he furthers in his columns. I mean, how can you have a columnist that advises candidate see advise Giuliani, he advised even Dinkins that's not the role of a columnist to be an advisor, The New York Times they fire you for doing something like that.

Clip from "the Media Show" British Channel 4 program. Includes testimonials and clips Ed Koch

INTERVIEW CONTINUED - ED KOCH

Robert Lipsyte:

Well, you've got a column in the poll weekly column in the post, you're on channel two, you've got a new book of letters coming out, right? You're part of the media?

Ed Koch
Yes, I am. The Book of letters. By the way, all the money goes to W NYC foundation. So I don't get any of the money out people buy it. It's a good book. Yes, I am part of the media. But I distinguish between those colonists who are really politicians with a column because they want to get their agenda addressed. And colonists who search for the truth, there are a number of columns who don't care about the truth.

Robert Lipsyte
Did you think that there are people in this town who were politicians carrying press cards?

Ed Koch
Well, I like did it figuratively speaking? Yeah.

Robert Lipsyte
Well, how important were they to you? Do they help you hinder you

Ed Koch
both? I believe that I was able to get my message across. Because I didn't deal just with the print media. I dealt with the radio media and the television media. And I am able to take a complicated thought and to express it in the 30 seconds or 60 seconds that the television people need for the most convoluted proposition.

Robert Lipsyte
So in a sense, you're saying you leapfrog the media?

Ed Koch
Yes, because if you are only dealing with the print media, then you can't get your story across to the public. I have to educate the public on the need for tough decisions on the need for tightening one's belt, what the future would be. And if you were dependent on the written press, then you were censored, not in any bad way but they would take down whatever it is. Is that they wanted to get across and whereas if you had the three out there, your message in one form or another in its totality would ultimately break into the consciousness of the public.

Robert Lipsyte
But I mean, it was the print press that was able to examine your policies closely. The printers and what you were doing, by leapfrogging over them, you merely said, Here I am, How am I doing this?

Ed Koch
No, that's not true. The difference is that the print press is the most analytical and there's no question about that, because they have more space in which to provide their thoughts. But with the exception of some of the reporters in the New York Times is obviously unique in its way. The two flakiest papers in town are Newsday. Its editorial columns are just flaking. Its reporters are quite good. In the Daily News, both reporters and editorial writers are flaky. I mean, I maniacal, I think the post is quite good. Now, you may say I liked the post. But I said this before I became a columnist for The post, I think that they really get a bad press from the other media. They didn't like rupert murdoch. And so therefore, they don't even like Peter Calico, because he's the successor. But I think in terms of their editorials, they're superb. And I think they reporters are very good

Robert Lipsyte
They supported you very strongly in 1977

Ed Koch
Well so did the Daily News. The New York Times did not . Nor did Newsday

Robert Lipsyte
And it's still not working for them

Ed Koch
works better here than it does some other places. Let's talk about education.

Robert Lipsyte
Maybe we expect more from New York and more from you

Ed Koch
Joe Fernandez, the chancellor, he said, Do you know what the dropout rate was in 1900? When you had this huge number of Europeans coming here, and everybody talks about the good old days, he said the dropout rate was 90%. He said, But business was able

Robert Lipsyte
Who is talking about the good old days in 1900, where there were little boys.

Ed Koch
They talked about the screens is doing their job that these people wanted to learn and were educated and somehow rather the schools. Joe Fernandez, I'm quoting him says the dropout rate in those days in the early 1900s was 90%. The dropout rate today is 29% plus, so let's say 30%. You go to a city like Minneapolis, where the old Chancellor, Chancellor green came from his dropout rate was higher than New York cities and their demographics and poverty and all of the other problems of drugs and alcoholism. They don't exist to the extent that they do here. So while I'm not satisfied with the dropout rate, it has to be reduced. It should be brought down to below 15%. It is still a dropout rate. It is no higher than any other large city and lower than many.

Robert Lipsyte
What are you satisfied? I mean, this is the third act was not the best act of your three terms. Are you satisfied by the legacy?

Ed Koch
Let's talk about that. Oh, I'm proud of what we did. And I think most of the people who served my government are quite proud of it. The third term, regrettably, was marred by the fact that Donald Manes committed suicide turns out to have been a common criminal corrupt fool the soil. JACK Newfield since you mentioned him earlier, said he never knew that Donald Manes was a crook. And he's one of these investigatory reporters. So how would I know he was a crook? Everybody thought he would be one of our future mayors. He was so smart, but he was a crook. Now.

Robert Lipsyte
We're a number of crooks, the administration and and and things were going on in the basement of City Hall.

Ed Koch
Let me just address that. Okay. Because all you're doing is regurgitating what the reporters who were critics of mine said was the fact when it wasn't the fact you would think that in my administration, there must have been dozens, hundreds of corrupt people at high levels. The fact is six people appointed by me, were indicted and convicted of corruption. And in each case, I asked the judge to provide the toughest sanctions, mandatory sentences that he could apply. And I think that if you commit a crime and public service that you should go to jail for as long as the law allows. But because of my personality and the presence that I had at City Hall, I was blamed for the corruption of people like Donald manes, or meat Esposito or Mario Biagi who were independently elected in by voters in their particular boroughs or Stanley Friedman. These were people who were independently elected. And if you take even the case of Stanley Friedman, I have asked the state legislature so many times since Stanley Friedman was uncovered as being corrupt, to bar party officials from doing business with the City of New York in the same way that public officials are prohibited from doing business. And the state legislature refuses to do that. Now, what can I do about that?

Robert Lipsyte
Well, no, you're right in what you said. It's your personality. Yeah, that kind of overwhelms. Well, it created expectations in in all of us. Ed thanks very much

Lipsyte announces The Eleventh Hour and introduces himself. Show ends.

Charitable funding by announcer and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.