Word: koch
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Koch has declared himself "chagrined and mortified that this kind of corruption could exist and I did not know of it." His ignorance may have been willful: during his first campaign for mayor, Koch, running as a reformer, secretly solicited the support of Meade Esposito, Brooklyn's powerful Democratic boss. Then, as mayor, Koch appointed Esposito's pal Anthony Ameruso as transportation commissioner, even though an advisory board had declared Ameruso unqualified. The transportation department went on to become the source of major scandals. Ameruso has been convicted of perjury, Esposito of corruption in a separate case. The mayor, says...
...Koch reacted instantly to the crash by freezing the planned hiring of 5,200 new workers and postponing raises for 4,000 management jobs. As a result of his reassuring actions, the city's bond rating was upgraded last week to its highest level since the 1975 financial crisis. Investment Banker Felix Rohatyn, head of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which oversees the city's finances, praised the belt tightening as a "good first step," but warned that "New York faces the potential of a very difficult period...
...Koch has been accused of basking in the spotlight while ignoring what goes on in the city's darker corners. He has been wounded most of all by unending investigations and indictments of members of his administration for bribery, perjury, extortion, skimming and conspiracy. City workers from top leaders down to parking-meter attendants and sewer inspectors, along with judges, Congressmen and state legislators, have been found guilty. U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, the Republicans' white knight, claims more than 150 convictions by his office alone. Some targets were Koch's closest friends -- notably Donald Manes, president of the borough...
Critics accuse Koch of giving away the government to political bosses and giving away Manhattan to developers. Koch has coddled builders with tax breaks while their towering, ego-driven projects block out the sun, overload already groaning services and paralyze traffic. Celebrities like Jacqueline Onassis, Henry Kissinger and Paul Newman have joined hundreds of West Side residents in protests against skyscrapers proposed by Builders Donald Trump and Mortimer Zuckerman. Bowing to public pressure, Zuckerman has offered to scale down his 68-story tower, which would cast shadows across Central Park. NBC has backed away from Trump's proposed Television City...
Author Robert A. Caro, whose book on the legendary city planner Robert Moses was a Pulitzer-prizewinning study of the exercise of urban power, decries Koch's lack of vision. "The physical transformation of a city changes it for generations, for centuries. I see a city being cemented into place against the sky -- a city of monstrous buildings, with a disregard for human scale, human values. Koch is building a big city, not a great one. The Koch administration, I fear, will go down in history surrounded by shadows, the shadow of corruption and the shadows cast by enormous buildings...