Larry Kramer demanded his memorial plaque be nowhere near Ed Koch’s

May 29, 2020


A tribute to Larry Kramer revealed a blood feud between the playwright and Ed Koch.

Apparently Kramer, who died Wednesday, lived in the same building as the former mayor and despised him so much that he petitioned the building’s board not to put his memorial plaque near Koch’s. Paper magazine founder Kim Hastreiter posted a heartfelt message about Kramer on Instagram, mentioning that the “doormen would try to keep [Kramer and Koch] out of each other’s crosshairs.”

She said that there’s a plaque for Koch by the door to their Washington Square apartment building, and Kramer announced at a gathering of residents “that when his plaque was put up (postmortem) he needed a guarantee from the board of directors that he would not be on the same side [of the door] as Koch.”

Calvin Trillin remembered Kramer in the New Yorker as “a pain in the ass as a matter of policy. He was also our beloved family friend.”

  • Share:

You Might Also Like

0 comments