Missing in action Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York, had a bombastic style that defined the image of a big-city leader in the 1980s.
But as open as Koch could be, my colleagues Matt Flegenheimer and Rosa Goldensohn wrote in a new profile of him, he strained to conceal one aspect of his life: He was gay.
I spoke to Matt about the story. Why write about Ed Koch and his private life now? This isn’t a story about his sex life. It’s about his life and how that life had profound implications for his city.
As much as he tried to compartmentalize his public and private existence, he was fundamentally one man. Our aim was to capture that — the ways in which his choices and burdens shaped the city he was leading.