Koch\'s Lunch Mates Convene Without Him, And He\'s Still the Center of Attention

Todd Heisler/The New York Times Friends of the former mayor, Edward I Koch, met for lunch on Saturday in Chinatown at one of Mr. Koch’s favorite restaurants.

Edward I. Koch’s weekly luncheon club convened as usual on Saturday, but with a few differences.

Normally, the group would have gathered first at Mr. Koch’s Greenwich Village apartment for the requisite banter, capped by the obligatory argument over where to go for lunch. Mr. Koch would have ordered for everyone. The meal would have ended sooner, because he would be heaing home to nap.

That’s the way it went for decades, as recently as two weeks ago, which was the last time that the group included Mr. Koch.

The former mayor died early Friday, but his friend Arnold N. Kriss, a lawyer and former deputy police commissioner, rallied the half-dozen or so regulars to uphold the tradition, at least one last time, at the Peking Duck House in Chinatown, one of Mr. Koch’s favorite hangouts.

Emotions were mixed, but the conversation was cathartic. Nobody said that a moment of silence in memory of the voluble mayor would be apropos.

“Maybe a moment of cheering,” suggested Peter Ashkenazy, a retired city commissioner and restaurateur, who, with Mr. Koch and Dan Wolf, the founding editor of The Village Voice who died in 1996, originated the weekly gathering in the mid-1960s.

The group, ranging in age from their! mid-60s to early 80s, usually alternated among three restaurants (Aqua Grill and Union Square Cafe were the others), and rarely ventured elsewhere, especially a noisy venue where Mr. Koch, bereft of his hearing aid, would tune out and even doze off as he was known to do when the subject shifted to someone else.

“‘Dan Wolf would always say when Ed was nodding off, ‘and now, back to me,’ ” Mr. Ashkenazy recalled.

He was joined by John LoCicero, Mr. Koch’s political counselor and friend for 50 years; Tom Baer, an entertainment lawyer; George Arzt, his former press secretary; and Henry J. Stern, the former parks commissioner (who revealed that after years of badgering, Mr. Koch finally succumbed to Mr. Stern’s penchant for bestowing nicknames; he chose “Chortle,” Mr. Stern said, “but rescinded it 30 seconds later”).

They swapped anecdotes about the former mayor’s eating habits (“if they served muffins, he’d say ‘don’t you have any real bread’ Mr. Baer recalle) and mostly fond memories of his 12 years at City Hall and of his early political career.

“In 1977, when he was thinking of running for mayor, I invited all my Italian relatives to meet him,” Mr. LoCicero recalled. “One cousin pinched my cheek and said, ‘he’s not like you, a lefty. He’s a regular guy.’ And then, I knew we could win.”

They recalled his delight in tormenting adversaries, his fatalism, his pragmatism and his irreverence. Marching in a parade, he once turned to the Chinese ambassador and said: “If you want to defect, I’m here to help.”

They agreed that Mr. Koch would have been pleased by the press coverage of his death and the promotional possibilities it afforded: He died on the very day that Neil Barsky’s documentary, “Koch,” which the former mayor had already seen, opened in New York. When Mr. LoCicero left Mr. Koch’s hospital room Tuesday night to attend the formal premiere, the former mayor quipped: “Don’t tell me the plot.”

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In hin! dsight, they recalled that after a traditional election night dinner last November, Mr. Koch did not join them to visit his favored congressional candidates, because he was too fatigued. They were grateful that Mr. Koch did not linger, because they could not bear to see him become decrepit. A few remembered their final conversations with Mr. Koch last week.

“He said something about, ‘this is top secret,’ but I couldn’t understand him,” Mr. Ashkenazy recalled.

“His last words to me before losing consciousness were ‘beleaguered and tired,’ ” Mr. Arzt said.

“He was ready to die,” Mr. Ashkenazy said.

Mr. Baer expressed concern about braving the expected crowd at the funeral service Monday, which Mr. Koch had insisted be open to the public.

“Bring your binoculars,” Mr. Ashkenazy said.

The service is supposed to last an hour, but Mr. LoCicero said: “You can’t tell Bill Clinton how long to talk - he can talk for 45 minutes.”

To which Mr. Ashenazy replied: “He’s going to fly home across the Pacific to speak for five minutes”

Lunch ended with the hindquarters of both ducks intact, which would not have happened had Mr. Koch been at the table. “Because it has a higher level of fat,” Mr. Ashkenazy speculated.

“You know the duck didn’t kill him; he’s been eating it for 50 years,” Mr. Kris said.

“It didn’t taste as good as it always does,” Mr. Ashkenazy said.

“Maybe, it’s the salt from the tears,” Mr. Kriss replied.

Just then Mr. Arzt opened his fortune cookie. The proverb inside could have been Mr. Koch’s epitaph. “There is no end,” it said. “There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”