But he was shrewd, and tough and unflinching in the worst crisis his city had faced in decades: the threat of bankruptcy. Building on the strong foundation laid down by Governor Hugh Carey, he balanced the budget, tamed the municipal unions and—perhaps most crucially of all—restored to the step of his fellow New Yorkers the spring that never, ever left his own. “How’m I doin’?” became his endless shtick because he knew that, most of the time, the answer was “Fine!”

He was criticized as being slow to respond to the twin 80s crises of aids and homelessness, but he rallied on the former and, on the latter, began a program of building or rehabilitating affordable housing that ultimately produced more than 200,000 new units.

Sure, he could be vain. His ego led him to believe that because he was honest, he could rely on the honesty of others, and when a string of unrelated but contemporaneous corruption scandals that he had nothing to do with erupted in his third term, he was stung—and damaged. He tried for the fourth term that even his idol La Guardia had not been vouchsafed and was defeated in the Democratic primary by David Dinkins, who vowed to heal divisions that Koch’s feisty style had been seen as helping to sow.

He loved the perks of Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, but lived a simple bachelor’s life. He once said that his most precious possessions were two “real” Barcelona chairs, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and produced by Knoll. He advised readers of his newspaper column to buy Breyers ice cream (as good as Häagen-Dazs, but cheaper). He sometimes went to fancy restaurants but delighted in Chinatown dives, especially a now defunct joint called Sun Lok Kee that served giant steamed oysters awash in black-bean sauce.

He could hold a grudge. He never forgave Mario Cuomo, his rival in the 1977 mayoral primary, whose supporters plastered posters reading, “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo,” all over Queens Boulevard as a way of raising doubts about Koch’s sexuality, about which—with the exception of two late-career radio interviews in which he declared himself a heterosexual—the mayor was famously Delphic. (In a charming video obituary on the *Times’*s Web site, Koch says that while they maintained a civil façade, he was sure Cuomo knew that every time they met, Koch was privately thinking: “You prick!”)

For a week or so circa 1990, I was his publicly declared “favorite reporter.” But I knew it was only because I’d written a sort of dishy article for the Times in which I’d given Koch the chance to tee off on the banker Felix Rohatyn, who as the longtime head of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, created by the state during the city’s fiscal crisis, had the power to lord it over the mayor, and often did. Still, I do think he liked me (most of the time). Once, after spring budget negotiations had dragged on and on through several midnights, he declared that this was the night on which a settlement would at last be reached. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I asked. “He’s not even Jewish!” the mayor howled back.

For all his bluster, he was not un-self-aware. Once upon a time, then city councilwoman Ruth Messinger of the Upper West Side—a frequent liberal scourge of the mayor’s—held a City Hall news conference, dressed in a baseball cap, to urge the city not to give any more concessions on questions like parking to George Steinbrenner’s Yankees, unless the team agreed to broadcast more games on free television instead of pay channels. “Lemme tell you something about Ruth Messinger,” Koch spluttered when asked about her demand later that day. “If there is any event happening anywhere in the world that she can bring New York City into it to further her ambitions for citywide office, you can count on it!”

Cheekily, I asked, “Well, how is she so different from you in that regard?” He beamed. “She isn’t,” he declared, then paused for effect, and beamed again. “Did I say she was?”

Indeed, he and his city were one in ways that other politicians could only envy. Once, flying back to LaGuardia on a clear night from some less vibrant venue he had reluctantly been forced to visit, he surveyed the city sprawled below him like so many gleaming, scattered jewels. He turned to a reporter seated beside him and said simply, “Mine. All mine.”

Yours, indeed, Mr. Mayor. Shalom.