The Apple's Big Polisher

He is the quintessential New Yorker: street smart, loud, witty, full of life, always in motion, combative. "Feisty," corrects Mayor Edward Koch. "Combative has a pejorative quality."

Koch's success story is classically New York. His parents were immigrant Jews from Poland. During the Depression, Koch's father lost his fur business in The Bronx and moved his wife and three children to Newark to share a two-bedroom apartment with four other relatives. Ed, 12, helped support the family with tips he earned by operating a hat-check concession in a catering hall.

After his family moved to Brooklyn, Koch worked his way through City College by selling shoes. During World War II, he fought in Europe as an Army sergeant and returned to graduate from New York University Law School. A reformer at heart, he was a worker for Adlai Stevenson and, in 1966, won a term on the city council. In 1968 he was elected to his first of four terms as a Congressman representing Manhattan's "Silk Stocking" district, which includes part of the wealthy Upper East Side. In 1977, despite the fact that both the banks and labor supported other candidates, Koch was elected mayor with slightly more than 50% of the vote.

A bachelor with few family ties, Koch devotes his life to his job. He is a cheerful and unrepentant workaholic. In a city where the powerful can become, automatically, the beautiful people, Koch remains the homely bald guy in the shiny suit, Frank Perdue without a chicken. At first he even refused to live in the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, a large colonial house overlooking the East River; Koch now grudgingly spends most week nights there for convenience.

On weekends he heads for his bachelor pad in Greenwich Village--a one-bedroom apartment near Washington Square Park. The walls are decorated with Japanese prints, a "Koch for Congress" poster and a David Levine caricature of Hizzoner. Koch has had the rent-controlled apartment since the earlier '60s and now pays only $257 a month, a steal by any New York standards.

Frugality is a Koch trademark in both city management and personal life. He frequents inexpensive Italian cafes. He entertains friends in his apartment, cooking dinners himself in his narrow galley. The menu is usually basic: steak, salad, an inexpensive New York State wine and vanilla ice cream. "I don't like chichi parties and fancy restaurants--partly because I hate to pay the bills," says the mayor.

Koch has a coterie of faithful friends. Many, like Dan Wolf, a founding editor of the Village Voice, date back to his days as a young reformer. During his last campaign, Koch appeared frequently with Bess Myerson, 1945 Miss America and now a Democratic senatorial candidate. But they are just friends, not a twosome. Koch often has female aides fill in as his dates for important functions.

Koch trains for his job like a prizefighter. Weekday mornings he gets up at 6 o'clock and hurries off to a health spa near city hall. The manager opens it early so that Koch can ride the exercise bicycle, do sets of 17 sit-ups and bench presses, and jog a mile on the treadmill--all before going to work at 8 a.m., fit and eager for the day's crises. "Being mayor is a 24-hour-a-day job," says Koch. And that's how many hours he is fit and eager.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.