Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who led the nation's biggest city for three terms in the late 1970s and '80s, died Friday in a Manhattan hospital. Koch, 88, died of congestive heart failure at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital, a spokesman, George Arzt, said. His death came two days after a documentary about the former mayor, "Koch," premiered in New York. Koch had been scheduled to appear at the premiere but a day earlier was admitted to the hospital to be treated for fluid in his lungs and shortness of breath. Koch suffered a stroke while in office in 1987 and in recent months had been hospitalized for a variety of ills. He was readmitted last Monday, two days after having been released from an earlier hospitalization, and he died at about 2 a.m., Arzt said in a phone interview. Koch took the helm of New York in 1978, and his enthusiasm for his hometown and fiscal conservatism were credited with lifting the city from the doldrums after its near-bankruptcy in the 1970s and the flight of residents to the suburbs. Read more http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-obit-koch-20130201,0,7453906.story
