NEW YORK -- Ed Koch is being remembered as the quintessential New Yorker -- an admired but tough, colorful former mayor who will be honored at his funeral by former President Bill Clinton.
At the service this morning at Manhattan's Temple Emanu-El, mourners will also hear about Koch's other fierce loyalty: Israel. The Israeli consul general is set to speak, along with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.And New York Police Department helicopters are expected to fly over the synagogue in honor of Koch.Koch was a friend of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, and was helpful during her successful campaign for the Senate from New York, according to Koch spokesman George Arzt. Koch also backed Hillary Clinton in her presidential run.Bill Clinton will serve as a representative for President Barack Obama at the funeral.Koch died Friday of congestive heart failure at age 88.Friends from his weekly Greenwich Village luncheon gathering got together Saturday, two weeks after his last meal with them.The funeral will be held at one of the nation's most prominent synagogues, a Reform Jewish congregation on Fifth Avenue. Bloomberg is a member, as are comedian Joan Rivers and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer."I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone," Koch said in 2008 after buying a burial plot in Trinity Church Cemetery, at the time the only graveyard in Manhattan that still had space. "This is my home. The thought of having to go to New Jersey was so distressing to me."Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
