Tweet
The New York Times
June 23, 2012 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
Edward Costikyan, 87; Advised Top New York Officials
By DENNIS HEVESI
Edward N. Costikyan, a former adviser to New York governors and mayors
who as a Democratic Party insurgent in the early 1960s took over the
leadership of Tammany Hall as it rooted out a century of bossism, died
on Friday at his home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. He was 87.
His daughter, Emilie, confirmed the death.
It was in March 1962, four months after the ouster of the imperious
party boss Carmine G. De Sapio, that Mr. Costikyan was elected leader
of Tammany Hall -- a party organization tainted since the 1860s by the
prodigious corruption of Boss William Tweed.
After Mr. Costikyan's two years as leader, many Manhattan Democrats,
including Mr. Costikyan, said that Tammany Hall was no more. All that
remained, they said, was simply the New York County Democratic Party.
''He was a transitional link from the collapse of Tammany Hall to the
modern-day Manhattan party structure,'' said Mitchell L. Moss, a
professor of urban policy at New York University. ''It went from
warlord to a series of would-be bosses.''
In 1964, Mr. Costikyan resigned from his party post to become a
partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, the Manhattan law
firm. But over the next three decades, he was repeatedly pulled back
into the political fray.
Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, a Republican, chose him as chairman of a
commission that in 1972 called for the decentralization of New York
City's government. In 1986, at the height of the city's Parking
Violations Bureau scandal -- involving a bribery and kickback scheme
that brought down powerful Democratic politicians and raised the
profile of Rudolph W. Giuliani, then a Republican prosecutor -- Gov.
Mario M. Cuomo and Mayor Edward I. Koch, both Democrats, appointed Mr.
Costikyan to a special panel investigating ways to prevent corruption.
In 1994, Mr. Guiliani, by then the mayor, asked Mr. Costikyan to draft
a plan to eliminate the city's central Board of Education and place
the school system under mayoral control -- a reorganization realized
under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
''He was the go-to guy for politicians of both parties,'' Professor
Moss said. ''Throughout his career, he was a forceful advocate for
modernizing government and the decentralization of urban services,
though he wasn't always successful.''
Edward Nazar Costikyan was born on Sept. 14, 1924, in Weehawken, N.J.
His father, Mihran, an Armenian immigrant from Turkey, was a rug
merchant. Mr. Costikyan's mother, Berthe, was a teacher at the Horace
Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Mr. Costikyan
graduated from that school in 1941.
In World War II, as an Army first lieutenant, he saw action on
Okinawa, then served as the military governor for a small district in
Korea. He graduated from Columbia University in 1947 and earned his
law degree there two years later. Within a year he had become law
secretary to Judge Harold R. Medina of the United States District
Court in Manhattan.
In 1950, Mr. Costikyan married Frances Holmgren, and the couple moved
to East 53rd Street. Mr. Costikyan waded into clubhouse politics and
in 1955 was elected Democratic leader of the Assembly district in his
East Side neighborhood, placing him on Tammany Hall's executive
committee.
Stirrings of reform were being heard. Mr. Costikyan joined other
reformers in 1960 to circulate a petition calling for Mr. De Sapio's
ouster, saying that his ''bossism'' -- overseeing a strict
precinct-based structure with patronage based on party loyalty --
would give the Republicans a powerful issue in the next election. The
reformers were supported by Mayor Robert F. Wagner, a Democrat.
In fall 1961, Mr. De Sapio was deposed. On March 2, 1962, Mr.
Costikyan was elected Tammany leader and began a balancing act of
trying to democratize the party while still dealing with its old
guard. Indeed, reform Democrats criticized him for being too willing
to compromise with the party regulars.
Municipal reform remained a concern after he resigned from his party
post and went into private law practice. As chairman of Governor
Rockefeller's 1972 task force on city government, Mr. Costikyan
recommended that the city be carved into 25 to 40 districts, each with
its own ''locality mayor'' and council administering services like
street cleaning, schools and even police patrols. (Some said the
governor created the task force because of his rivalry with Mayor John
V. Lindsay, a Republican turned Democrat who had campaigned as a
reformer.)
Mr. Costikyan acknowledged that decentralization was no cure-all for
inaccessible government agencies. But political clubs no longer held
sway in the television era, he said, and that left a vacuum: nothing
to mediate between neighborhoods and the bureaucracies downtown.
Criticism of his report, Mr. Costikyan said, was based on fear among
the ''liberal-intellectual middle class'' that poor people were
incapable of self-government.
After his first marriage ended in divorce, Mr. Costikyan married
Barbara Heine, a freelance writer, on March 6, 1977. Four days later,
he announced he was running for mayor.
''I know what a long shot my campaign is,'' he said at a news conference.
He joined a Democratic field that would grow to include Mr. Koch and
Bella Abzug, both United States representatives; Percy Sutton, the
Manhattan borough president; Mr. Cuomo, then New York's secretary of
state; and Mayor Abraham D. Beame, who was seeking re-election in the
face of rising crime and a worsening economy.
Two months later, short of money and support, he pulled out of the
race to become co-chairman of Mr. Koch's campaign. Mr. Koch went on to
win the mayoral election.
The Parking Violations Bureau scandal, in which officials accepted
hidden partnerships and bribes in exchange for granting contracts to
fine-collection agencies, drew Mr. Costikyan back into public service
as a member of the special commission on corruption formed by Governor
Cuomo and Mayor Koch. Its report called for changes in campaign
financing, ethics rules, judicial selection and contracting practices.
In spring 1994, Mayor Giuliani asked Mr. Costikyan to come up with a
plan for replacing the city's schools chancellor with an education
commissioner. The mayor had engaged in a long feud with the central
board and several chancellors. Then, on July 10, 1995, in a sharp
escalation of the tension, Mr. Giuliani formed a commission -- with
Mr. Costikyan as chairman -- to investigate criminal activity in the
system and the effectiveness of the central board in maintaining
school safety. The next day, Schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines
resigned.
Mr. Costikyan's second marriage also ended in divorce. Besides his
daughter, he is survived by a son, Gregory; his brother, Andrew; and
five grandchildren.
Mr. Costikyan also made a mark, though a lesser one, in music. For
more than 30 years, up to 80 lawyers, relatives and friends of lawyers
-- all amateur musicians and singers -- would gather for the Christmas
concert of the Occasional Oratorio and Orchestral Society, a group
founded by Mr. Costikyan and a fellow Columbia Law School graduate,
William M. Kahn, in 1950.
On the conductor's podium, at not quite 5-foot-5, Mr. Costikyan would
bob and weave to the strains of Stravinsky and Handel. During the
society's 1982 concert at the City Bar Association building in
Manhattan, Mr. Costikyan was heard urging, ''O.K., cellists and
bassists, plenty of schmaltz.''
June 23, 2012 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
Edward Costikyan, 87; Advised Top New York Officials
By DENNIS HEVESI
Edward N. Costikyan, a former adviser to New York governors and mayors
who as a Democratic Party insurgent in the early 1960s took over the
leadership of Tammany Hall as it rooted out a century of bossism, died
on Friday at his home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. He was 87.
His daughter, Emilie, confirmed the death.
It was in March 1962, four months after the ouster of the imperious
party boss Carmine G. De Sapio, that Mr. Costikyan was elected leader
of Tammany Hall -- a party organization tainted since the 1860s by the
prodigious corruption of Boss William Tweed.
After Mr. Costikyan's two years as leader, many Manhattan Democrats,
including Mr. Costikyan, said that Tammany Hall was no more. All that
remained, they said, was simply the New York County Democratic Party.
''He was a transitional link from the collapse of Tammany Hall to the
modern-day Manhattan party structure,'' said Mitchell L. Moss, a
professor of urban policy at New York University. ''It went from
warlord to a series of would-be bosses.''
In 1964, Mr. Costikyan resigned from his party post to become a
partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, the Manhattan law
firm. But over the next three decades, he was repeatedly pulled back
into the political fray.
Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, a Republican, chose him as chairman of a
commission that in 1972 called for the decentralization of New York
City's government. In 1986, at the height of the city's Parking
Violations Bureau scandal -- involving a bribery and kickback scheme
that brought down powerful Democratic politicians and raised the
profile of Rudolph W. Giuliani, then a Republican prosecutor -- Gov.
Mario M. Cuomo and Mayor Edward I. Koch, both Democrats, appointed Mr.
Costikyan to a special panel investigating ways to prevent corruption.
In 1994, Mr. Guiliani, by then the mayor, asked Mr. Costikyan to draft
a plan to eliminate the city's central Board of Education and place
the school system under mayoral control -- a reorganization realized
under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
''He was the go-to guy for politicians of both parties,'' Professor
Moss said. ''Throughout his career, he was a forceful advocate for
modernizing government and the decentralization of urban services,
though he wasn't always successful.''
Edward Nazar Costikyan was born on Sept. 14, 1924, in Weehawken, N.J.
His father, Mihran, an Armenian immigrant from Turkey, was a rug
merchant. Mr. Costikyan's mother, Berthe, was a teacher at the Horace
Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Mr. Costikyan
graduated from that school in 1941.
In World War II, as an Army first lieutenant, he saw action on
Okinawa, then served as the military governor for a small district in
Korea. He graduated from Columbia University in 1947 and earned his
law degree there two years later. Within a year he had become law
secretary to Judge Harold R. Medina of the United States District
Court in Manhattan.
In 1950, Mr. Costikyan married Frances Holmgren, and the couple moved
to East 53rd Street. Mr. Costikyan waded into clubhouse politics and
in 1955 was elected Democratic leader of the Assembly district in his
East Side neighborhood, placing him on Tammany Hall's executive
committee.
Stirrings of reform were being heard. Mr. Costikyan joined other
reformers in 1960 to circulate a petition calling for Mr. De Sapio's
ouster, saying that his ''bossism'' -- overseeing a strict
precinct-based structure with patronage based on party loyalty --
would give the Republicans a powerful issue in the next election. The
reformers were supported by Mayor Robert F. Wagner, a Democrat.
In fall 1961, Mr. De Sapio was deposed. On March 2, 1962, Mr.
Costikyan was elected Tammany leader and began a balancing act of
trying to democratize the party while still dealing with its old
guard. Indeed, reform Democrats criticized him for being too willing
to compromise with the party regulars.
Municipal reform remained a concern after he resigned from his party
post and went into private law practice. As chairman of Governor
Rockefeller's 1972 task force on city government, Mr. Costikyan
recommended that the city be carved into 25 to 40 districts, each with
its own ''locality mayor'' and council administering services like
street cleaning, schools and even police patrols. (Some said the
governor created the task force because of his rivalry with Mayor John
V. Lindsay, a Republican turned Democrat who had campaigned as a
reformer.)
Mr. Costikyan acknowledged that decentralization was no cure-all for
inaccessible government agencies. But political clubs no longer held
sway in the television era, he said, and that left a vacuum: nothing
to mediate between neighborhoods and the bureaucracies downtown.
Criticism of his report, Mr. Costikyan said, was based on fear among
the ''liberal-intellectual middle class'' that poor people were
incapable of self-government.
After his first marriage ended in divorce, Mr. Costikyan married
Barbara Heine, a freelance writer, on March 6, 1977. Four days later,
he announced he was running for mayor.
''I know what a long shot my campaign is,'' he said at a news conference.
He joined a Democratic field that would grow to include Mr. Koch and
Bella Abzug, both United States representatives; Percy Sutton, the
Manhattan borough president; Mr. Cuomo, then New York's secretary of
state; and Mayor Abraham D. Beame, who was seeking re-election in the
face of rising crime and a worsening economy.
Two months later, short of money and support, he pulled out of the
race to become co-chairman of Mr. Koch's campaign. Mr. Koch went on to
win the mayoral election.
The Parking Violations Bureau scandal, in which officials accepted
hidden partnerships and bribes in exchange for granting contracts to
fine-collection agencies, drew Mr. Costikyan back into public service
as a member of the special commission on corruption formed by Governor
Cuomo and Mayor Koch. Its report called for changes in campaign
financing, ethics rules, judicial selection and contracting practices.
In spring 1994, Mayor Giuliani asked Mr. Costikyan to come up with a
plan for replacing the city's schools chancellor with an education
commissioner. The mayor had engaged in a long feud with the central
board and several chancellors. Then, on July 10, 1995, in a sharp
escalation of the tension, Mr. Giuliani formed a commission -- with
Mr. Costikyan as chairman -- to investigate criminal activity in the
system and the effectiveness of the central board in maintaining
school safety. The next day, Schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines
resigned.
Mr. Costikyan's second marriage also ended in divorce. Besides his
daughter, he is survived by a son, Gregory; his brother, Andrew; and
five grandchildren.
Mr. Costikyan also made a mark, though a lesser one, in music. For
more than 30 years, up to 80 lawyers, relatives and friends of lawyers
-- all amateur musicians and singers -- would gather for the Christmas
concert of the Occasional Oratorio and Orchestral Society, a group
founded by Mr. Costikyan and a fellow Columbia Law School graduate,
William M. Kahn, in 1950.
On the conductor's podium, at not quite 5-foot-5, Mr. Costikyan would
bob and weave to the strains of Stravinsky and Handel. During the
society's 1982 concert at the City Bar Association building in
Manhattan, Mr. Costikyan was heard urging, ''O.K., cellists and
bassists, plenty of schmaltz.''