Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has passed away Friday morning of congestive heart failure.

The beloved mayor served three terms in New York City from 1978 until 1989. Koch, who was admitted to the New York bar in 1949, also sat on the bench for “The People’s Court” from 1997 until 1999.

Ed Koch was born in the Bronx in 1924. He worked as a hat-check boy in a dance hall in Newark, New Jersey, and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. Koch earned two Battle Stars in World War II, and came back to earn his law degree in 1948 at the New York University School of Law.

Koch served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 through 1977, and failed in a bid to become governor of New York in 1982. He lost his gubernatorial run in the primary to Mario Cuomo.

On March 23, 2011, the New York City Council voted to change the name Queensboro Bridge to become the “Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge”.