A Who’s Who of New York politicians and power players packed Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side this morning to bid farewell to Mayor Ed Koch. Among the eulogizers was Bill Clinton, who returned home early from a trip to Japan. “We miss you so much because we all know we are doing a lot better because you lived and served,” Clinton said. Mayor Bloomberg alluded to Koch’s famous campaign motto “How’m I doing?” when he described Koch “getting up to heaven, meeting God, and saying with a big smile, ‘How’d I do?’”
The funeral ended on a particularly moving note. Koch’s coffin was carried out of the temple to sustained applause and the organist’s rendition of “New York, New York.”