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Ed Koch’s tombstone has wrong birthdate – Metro US

Ed Koch’s tombstone has wrong birthdate

(Photo by JP Yim/Getty Images) Former Mayor Ed Koch died earlier this year. Credit: JP Yim/Getty Images

The tombstone of former Mayor Ed Koch, who died earlier this year, is engraved with the wrong birth year.

Koch was born on Dec. 12, 1924, but the birthdate on his tombstone reads “December 12, 1942.”

The mistake is ironic since Koch was known for having planned the details of his burial years before his death, including what would be written on his tombstone.

The former mayor, who is buried in Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights, bought the plot because he said he wanted to stay in Manhattan forever.

He also chose to have inscribed a quote by journalist Daniel Pearl, who was killed by al Qaeda terrorists in 2002: “My father is Jewish; my mother is Jewish; I am Jewish.”

The date was not engraved when Koch was buried, NBC News reports. It was engraved earlier this month, and the mistake was due to an “inadvertent error,” Tommy Flynn of Flynn Funeral and Cremation Memorial Services told NBC.

“I have to make it right. I will correct it,” he said.

“As Ed Koch used to say, ‘It’s always important to correct the record,'” said Koch’s former chief of staff Diane Coffey about the error.

Koch died of congestive heart failure on Feb. 1 of this year.