Mayor Ed Koch Sought a Boyfriend in His Final Years

GayNrd Editors May 7, 2022

Edward Irving Koch, the longtime Mayor of the City of New York, sought “someone to make up for lost time.. a boyfriend” says a new story in the New York Times Saturday.

Koch, who served as mayor from January 3, 1969 through December 31, 1977 remained a central and sometimes polarizing figure for the remainder of his life and although he dodged rumors about his sexuality continuously, he vehemently denied he was gay until his death.

The New York Times:

.”..As his 70s ticked by, Mr. Koch described to a few friends a feeling he could not shake: a deep loneliness. He wanted to meet someone, he said. Did they know anyone who might be “partner material?” Someone “a little younger than me?” Someone to make up for lost time?
“I want a boyfriend,” he said to one friend, Charles Kaiser.
It was an aching admission, shared with only a few, from a politician whose brash ubiquity and relentless New York evangelism helped define the modern mayoralty, even as he strained to conceal an essential fact of his biography: Mr. Koch was gay.
He denied as much for decades — to reporters, campaign operatives and his staff — swatting away longstanding rumors with a choice profanity or a cheeky aside, even if these did little to convince some New Yorkers. Through his death, in 2013, his deflections endured.

With gay rights re-emerging as a national political tinderbox, The New York Times has assembled a portrait of the life Mr. Koch lived, the secrets he carried and the city he helped shape as he carried them. While both friends and antagonists over the years have referenced his sexuality in stray remarks and published commentaries, this account draws on more than a dozen interviews with people who knew Mr. Koch and are in several cases speaking extensively on the record for the first time — filling out a chapter that they say belongs, at last, to the sweep of history.

“With other gay people, he seemed completely comfortable as a gay man,” Mr. Kaiser said. “He went to every gay movie, so the chauffeur had to know.”

It is a story that might otherwise fade, with many of Mr. Koch’s contemporaries now in the twilight of their lives.

Read the full story here.

The people who described Mr. Koch’s trials as a closeted gay man span the last 40 years of his life, covering disparate social circles and political allegiances. Most are gay men themselves, in whom Mr. Koch placed his trust while keeping some others closest to him in the dark. They include associates who had kept his confidence since the 1970s and late-in-life intimates whom he asked for dating help, a friend who assisted in furtive setups for Mr. Koch when he was mayor and a fleeting romantic companion from well after his time in office.

This story, exploring the dual lives of Ed Koch, who was one of the most popular mayors in New York history, has never been fully told.