Metro

A shame Ed had to miss this farewell blowout!

Were it not for a previous engagement with the Almighty, there’s not an icicle’s chance in hell or heaven that Ed Koch would have missed this party.

Movers, shakers, machers and ordinary schmoes from the dreaded outer boroughs risked pain and frostbite to stand on the frigid Upper East Side for a chance to schmooze and say goodbye.

A former president, a disgraced ex-governor, political sworn enemies and lifelong allies. A secretary. A laborer. An ex-police employee.

All were welcome, and Koch would have loved every minute of it.

For these were Koch’s peeps who came to Temple Emanu-El by cab, subway or on foot to curry favor, even in death.

And yesterday, we met the warm-and-fuzzy side of Ed Koch, the three-term mayor whose humor and hubris defined the city he loved with the very essence of his being.

Who knew? Koch, it turned out, was a complex character who hid his deep and abiding intellectuality behind a quip. For decades, he played the city’s ultimate ringmaster. But he was loyal to his family and friends, even those who disagreed with him — and whom he inevitably called “wrong.’’

He had a profound allegiance to the state of Israel, which curried no favor with the politically correct. Asked to describe himself in an interview, he called himself “a Jewish mayor.’’

Koch was incredibly loving and warm to his great-niece and -nephew, who tugged at my heartstrings while displaying an inherited streak of chutzpah.

Great-nephew Noah Thaler said aloud what few who loved Koch would dare.

“Uncle Eddie was often portrayed as a lonely bachelor,’’ Noah said. “He was a vital and vibrant member of our family.’’

At age 87, Koch got his first manicure, ever, with his great-niece.

His passing drew a special guest appearance from ex-President Bill Clinton, who teared up while describing how coming to Koch’s funeral from Japan won Clinton an extra day of life.

Traveling from the East, “You pick up a whole day and, at our age, every day counts,’’ Clinton, 66, said, to nervous laughter.

He also said Koch won points in his war on cigarettes, telling young people that tobacco would harm their virility, rather than their hearts and lungs.

Astonishingly, former love gov Eliot Spitzer and even Gov. Andy Cuomo and his dad, former Gov. Mario, all showed up.

Koch said in a 2007 New York Times interview released after his death that he never forgave the Cuomos whom, he suspected, were to blame for signs posted during his 1977 primary fight against Mario that said, “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo.’’

Koch long responded to questions about his sexuality with a big “F–k off!’’ To that I say: Right on!

But it was the small folk who showed the stuff Koch was made of.

Arlene, an assistant from Forest Hills, Queens, came into “the city’’ to watch Koch’s coffin carried out of the temple to strains of “New York, New York.’’

“He was a mensch,’’ she said.

Said Michael Manzolilli, 66, of Brooklyn, a retired police employee, “He was an effective mayor, a very good mayor.

“I think he was also a good human being.’’

And in the end, that’s what counts.