Koch Left $100,000 To Secretary, Former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who lived
in a rent-controlled apartment as a United States representative and
never made more than $130,000 a year as mayor, left a generous amount of
money to one of his most loyal employees.
According to a will filed on Monday in Manhattan, he made nearly all of his specific bequests to his family – including $500,000 to his sister, Pat Thaler, and her husband — with two notable exceptions.
According to a will filed on Monday in Manhattan, he made nearly all of his specific bequests to his family – including $500,000 to his sister, Pat Thaler, and her husband — with two notable exceptions.
He gave $100,000 to his longtime secretary, Mary Garrigan, who was with for him for decades when he was a public official and a lawyer in private practice, working at a Manhattan firm until shortly before his death on Feb. 1; and another $100,000 to the La Guardia and Wagner Educational Fund to create “a program bearing my name to promote public and government service.”
Many of his papers and an oral history had been given earlier to the La Guardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York.
The will, dated 2007 and filed in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan, also disclosed that Mr. Koch had agreed in 2000 to donate specified photographs and other memorabilia to the New-York Historical Society.
For an unpretentious politician who delighted in tweaking “richies” in his hometown, which has more millionaires than any other American city, Mr. Koch was proud of having accumulated a significant amount from book sales, jobs as a lawyer as a radio and television commentator and other work. While the will specified only $850,000 in bequests, Mr. Koch said in an interview a few months ago that he was actually worth about $10 million.
But he never flaunted his wealth and lived a relatively modest lifestyle in a cooperative apartment on lower Fifth Avenue just north of Washington Square since he was defeated for a fourth term as mayor in 1989.
While he fared better financially than many former mayors, his estate was minuscule when compared with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s estimated $27 billion net worth.
