Ah Ed......damn, I gotta say I was sad to hear it even though 89 aint bad, man he was a character.
Things I remember...humm I was back and forth on leaves so its spotty, 78 in NYC was a crazy year, the Bronx zoo ( I am referring to the Yankees clubhouse
) people were still uspet by son of sam from the summer of 77, I remember my aunt telling me she hated the street sweepers because he had his voice recorded and they'd blast it while they came down the street, "time to get up move your car", because people weren't moving on alternate side of the street parking days....
then there was the time he shutout down the entire west side highway because a guy was trapped by a crane or something under a collapsed bldg. and his engineers told him the vibrations might topple it over on him, 4 hours during rush hour, man he had half the city ready to kill him but, he didn't give a damn.....
then there was the time went to war with the aclu and resident do gooders over getting hostile homeless folks off the streets and he was quite vocal about it, he could not understand how the aclu could fight for the right for/of homeless person ( Brown her name was I beleive) or any homeless person 'to live on a subway grate' , aside from that, where in she very aggressively panhandled, threw her feces and urine at folks , cursing etc......anyway, he gave the city its swagger back so to speak.....
he wasn't my cup of tea politically, but he was a gentleman, a real 'mensch' and a liberal I would fight and die for or with , he was also a a combat infantryman and understood not everything was so black and white...we need more of his kind....RIP Ed.
