Was Former Mayor Ed Koch Gay?

TONS of anedotal evidence from friends in NYC in the eighties about his gay escapades.

Ed Crotch?

He dated Bess Meyerson a former Miss America so that means he's gay. Gay men love their pageants.

R3 So Trump is gay too? He loves pageants.

Don't be so literal r4.

Tony Kushner outed him in Angels in America

Didn't The Normal Heart out him years before Angels in America?

Larry Kramer lived in the same building as Trump so he'd know.

He was gay. Bess Myers was his beard. Everyone in New York knew it. As soon as she got into trouble with the law, he was never seen with her.

I lived in that building too (on Washington Place). It's a big apartment building. Living in there would not necessarily make you knowledgeable about another resident's sexual orientation. But I believe Ed Koch was gay.

is it a nice building r9?

He was no more gay than we are!

Didn't he have some goons tell his lover to leave the state "or else"?

What a ridiculous question. He was a huge queer.

[quote]I lived in that building too (on Washington Place). It's a big apartment building. Living in there would not necessarily make you knowledgeable about another resident's sexual orientation.

A single man living alone in a Greenwich Village apartment in the 70s/80s was about as gay as it got.

Although I wonder if Koch acted much on his homosexuality. Politics was probably his first love.

Bess Myerson certainly got around. She was supposed to marry the former Republican Presidential candidate and Governor of NY, Tom Dewey, but he died. Too bad she was embroiled in scandals large and small in her senior years. Bess was a raving beauty in her youth.

Bess Myerson and Thomas Dewey??

I don't think so.

Poor Bess, she ended on a bad note with this scandal, although the whole sordid mess provided some juicy gossip for New Yorkers.

LOL that there are people who think he was straight.

Bisexual I can see, but he was not straight.

I dunno, dahling, He nevah sucked MY Koch!

He tried to pick up my very hot friend when he was in San Francisco on business.

As butt ugly as he was closeted: old ed....

He was outed, fictionally and rather sweetly, in the John Cameron Mitchell film Shortbus.

"Larry Kramer lived in the same building as Trump so he'd know. " - No, R7.

Larry lives on Fifth Avenue, half a block from Washington Square. Koch lived there, and Larry used to corner him in the elevator and try to get his dog to piss on Koch.

He also has a great book collection! I've visited several times.

schlemiel and schlimazel

huh r42?

Your post is confusing. So did they live in the same building or not?

You meant R22, me.

Koch and Kramer lived in the same building, not a Trump building.

R7 was wrong. Kramer would never live in a Trump building, even back in the '80s. We were protesting him even then.

Oops I meant Kramer and Koch lived in the same building.

I must have Trump on the brain. (I was watching the AC interview when I posted.)

No, Koch lived around the corner from Kramer. Kramer lived in a nicer building on Fifth Avenue. I lived in the same building as Koch, on Washington Place.

Who's in first?

He always struck me as entirely asexual.

Bess Myerson was a complete screw-up throughout her life, not just in the "Bess Mess" of the 1980s.

Koch was a non-practicing homosexual, at least since the mid-1970s when he ran for mayor. Later, when asked, he claimed he was too old to have sex implying he was neither homo or hetero. Liz Smith used the same excuse at the time.

He always struck me as entirely unfuckable.

I never trusted Liz Smith, or Cindy Adams. They always seem to be friendly with creeps like Koch, Trump, Myerson, Koch brothers etc.

He was your typical baby boomer sociopath who wanted his cock and ate it too. He falls in line with other scared Jewish pussy men of that generation who stayed in the closet while others suffered, like Barry D., Clive D., Roy C., etc.

12 Years a Mayor, a Lifetime in the Closet:

an enduring, uneasy gay legacy:

r30, please enlighten us as to how Bess screwed up in the years before The Bess Mess.

I'm genuinely curious, as in our suburban Jewish household of the 19760s/70s, she was absolutely revered as The Queen of the Jews.

He guest-starred on Gimme A Break! Gay!

No straight man would EVER say, “I refuse to say whether I’m gay or straight.”

R33, you idiot, Ed Koch - born in 1924 - was not a Baby Boomer.

I want to see the "Koch home movies." You know he made some just like Rock Hudson.

R36:

Myerson blames her troubles on "a conspiracy of vindictive homosexuals; they're out to get me….They're jealous because I'm the two things they can never be: a woman and a Miss America." (1987)

Bess was a member of my family. She was definitely, how shall I put this, in a class by herself. At least, she certainly viewed herself that way, compared to the rest of us.

Ed was the most fun of the Koch Brothers.

You've all heard the Ed Koch clitoris story that I've posted a few times, yes?

r41, thanks for posting the Bess article. I found nothing in it to make me admire her less and your quote about the gays didn't seem to be in the article.

But what a shame she messed up her life so much in the 1980s. That was an epic fall.

Bess Myerson was the darling of New York Magazine.

My guess is non-practicing gay or bi. Let's face facts...if he were really making the sexual rounds of gay New York City in the '70s, most likely he would've succumbed to AIDS.

Back in the 80s I worked at an advertising agency in NYC and knew a gay copywriter who about the same age as Koch. He always said, "Oh please, Ed Koch visited every gay bar and gay bathhouse in Greenwich Village. Believe me, I KNOW!"

Boy, Bess Myerson was quite the C U Next Tuesday, according to what r46 posted.

Koch twice ran against Mario Cuomo, Andrew's father: in the late 70s for Mayor and four years later for Governor. Won the first, lost the second. The rest of his life. Koch was very bitter about the campaigns. Andrew was his father's campaign manager and in both elections he had the Italian and other Catholic neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens plastered with campaign flyers titled "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Home." Also sent vans around blaring the same thing over loudspeakers. The Cuomos were dirt to Koch.

^ Homo, not Home.

OP, watch the documentary "Outrage"

They discuss how Ed made his bf (a handsome, much younger guy) leave NYC once Ed was elected mayor

Btw, Ed was a WW2 combat veteran. I wonder if he got any soldier dick...

Btw, here's a link to the Outrage documentary. The Koch stuff begins around 27:25

uh, was joan queen bee???

fuk yes. Koch was a big ole queen.

Who would even have to ask if he was gay?!

r53, thanks so much for posting that incredible documentary. I was riveted!

R15, It was Kitty Carlisle Hart who dated Thomas Dewey, not Bess Myerson.

Yes, R57. Kitty Carlisle , another queen of the Jews! Married once to a homo Jew!

If Kitty dated Dewey it must have been before he was anyone important. She'd been married to Moss since the 1940s.

The reason Bess Myerson was so highly admired by the American Jewish population is because she always identified as a proud and outspoken Jew. She never downplayed, much less denied, her religious affinity after becoming Miss America in 1945 even though it might have opened more doors to her in show business. Moving into NY politics and consumer affairs, at which she worked tirelessly, only confirmed her place in Jewish culture and society.

Her downfall was a huge and inexplicable disappointment, totally out of character, or at least the character we thought we knew.

The behaviors that led to her downfall were NOT totally out of character for those of us who knew her. In fact, they were totally IN character. There's a big difference between people as they are and people as they would like to be seen.

R59, Moss Hart died in 1961. Thomas Dewey died in 1971. Got it?

R60, Out of character . . . as in her shoplifting arrest, her bribing a judge and having a public affair with a much younger married man?

Um, yes he was. AS FOR how actively gay he was, I have no idea. But contrary to what some may say he was a great Mayor.

No, Rose, he was just flamboyant.

^ Watch the Outrage documentary. He was definitely actively gay.

[quote]Was Former Mayor Ed Koch Gay?

Is the Pope Argentinian?

Gay- friend of mine worked as a summer clerk for him in the late 70s. Told me he was gay back then.

Wasn’t Koch known to be in drag or crossdressed on occasion? (I may be mistaking him with Giuliani or another politician)

No, Koch wasn't into drag

You rang?