During his three terms as Mayor from 1978-1989, he brought back fiscal stability to the City of New York and was responsible for placing the City on a GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) balanced budget basis. He created a housing program which, over a ten-year period, provided more than 150,000 units of affordable housing financed by city funds in the amount of $5.1 billion. He created, for the first time in New York City, a merit judicial selection system and selected some of the most outstanding public servants to serve in his administration.

Prior to being Mayor, Mr. Koch served for nine years as a Member of Congress and two years as a member of the City Council. He attended the City College of New York from 1941 to 1943. In 1943, he was drafted into the Army where he served with the 104th Infantry Division. He received two battle stars, and was honorably discharged with the rank of Sergeant in 1946. In that year, he attended New York University Law School, where he received his LLB degree in 1948 and began to practice law immediately thereafter.

He is currently a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave, LLP. He hosts a Friday evening call-in radio program on Bloomberg AM 1130 (WBBR) and is also a commentator on the same station. Koch is a weekly guest on NY1 television with Mark Green and former Senator Alfonse D'Amato, and each week he writes a political column and publishes movie reviews which appear in three newspapers. He also lectures around the country and overseas.

In 2004, Koch was appointed by Secretary Colin L. Powell as Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Anti-Semitism sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The conference, held in April 2004 in Berlin, Germany, was extraordinarily successful in binding the 55 member nations in their resolve to reduce and seek the elimination of rising anti-Semitism by enacting civil legislation and educating the youth throughout the world of the dangers of anti-Semitism. He is known and praised as a public figure with the common touch, a leader who "makes sense." In April 2005, he was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by President George W. Bush for a five-year term.

Additionally, Koch is the author of the following books: Mayor, Politics, His Eminence and Hizzoner, All The Best, Citizen Koch, Ed Koch on Everything, and most recently, Eddie, Harold's Little Brother, a children's book which he coauthored with his sister, Pat Koch Thaler.