How he did

Koch

Crit

Another documentary where I was waiting for the obviously gay guy to come out. Well, no, I wasn't really waiting for that this time. In any case, unlike Bruce in the Up films, it's too late now for the mayor to surprise us by marrying a woman and fathering a couple of kids.

Koch clearly cooperated in the making of this film, and it hits less hard than it might--but I believe that the last time we hear the words "Ed Koch" in the film, they are preceded by a man-on-the-Manhattan-street's "fuck." And if he is given full credit for the housing initiatives that highlighted his second term, the three factors that brought him down in his third term--widespread corruption in his administration, accusations by Act Up and other gay activists that he failed to respond effectively to the AIDS epidemic, and his ham-handed handling of the Yusef Hawkins murder by white thugs in Bensonhurst--also get full play.

It's a portrait of a man, ultimately, who, regardless of the reality of his love life ("none of [our] fucking business"--fair enough, of you reject, as he did, the notion that by declaring himself, he could have helped the cause of equality), he had a lifelong love affair--sometimes stormy, sometimes unrequited--with his city. On that score, at least, he was out and proud.