Metro

A grave mistake: Engraver botches Koch’s birth year

ED KOCH
Probably rolling in his grave.

ED KOCH
Probably rolling in his grave.

ETCHED IN STONE: The blunder shows the former mayor’s birth year as 1942 (circled) instead of 1924. (
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How’s Ed Koch’s grave site doing? Horrible!

The former mayor’s tombstone at Trinity Church in Washington Heights was mistakenly engraved with the wrong birth year — Dec. 12, 1942, instead of 1924.

The gaffe is enough to have Koch — a proud World War II veteran and stickler for detail — rolling in his grave.

“Do you belieeeevvveee it???!!!,” longtime Koch confidant George Arzt said in his best Koch imitation. “Correct the record!”

“We’re correcting the record, Ed,” Arzt quipped.

The irony is that Koch planned just about every detail of his funeral years in advance — discussions started in the 1980s.

He even did a pre-obituary video interview — which wasn’t published until after his death — where he took parting shots at his political foes.

Koch, 88, died of congestive heart failure on Feb. 1.

His pre-ordered tombstone had been in place for some time, with epitaphs he selected already inscribed.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that the date of birth and death were etched by a stone-cutter.

A manager for Trinity noticed the error and immediately reached out to Koch’s family and associates, sources said.

Arzt said he received a call from a Trinity official last week and was asked, “Are you sitting down?”

“I said, ‘OK. What is it?’ ” Arzt recalled. “It took my breath away.”

The funeral arrangements were handled by Flynn Funeral Home and Cremation Services, which employed the cutter who did the work.

“I made a mistake,” said funeral director Tommy Flynn, who spent eight months with Koch designing the tombstone.

“He’s a great guy. I’ll correct it.”

Arzt said that Koch loyalists had hoped to see the date of birth fixed before anyone noticed.

But it wasn’t to be.

The date of birth should be fixed no later than the Fourth of July, Arzt said.

“Mayor Koch was a mayor for all ages. That said, the date will be corrected,” said Trinity spokeswoman Lisa Linden.

Also inscribed on the tombstone are the words of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed by al Qaeda terrorists in 2002.

It reads, “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.”

And etched at the bottom of the tombstone, it reads, “He was fiercely proud of his Jewish faith. He fiercely defended the City of New York and he fiercely loved its people.

“Above all, he loved his country, the United States of America, in whose armed forces he served in World War II.”

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