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Ed Koch, the colorful three-term mayor who led New York City through its financial crisis in the '70s, has died.

George Arzt, a spokesman for the former mayor, tells NPR's Joel Rose that Koch died of congestive heart failure around 2 a.m. ET Friday. The former mayor was 88.

As Joel writes, Koch's "larger-than-life personality was well-suited to the nation's biggest city but could also get him in trouble." The Democratic mayor, says Joel:

"Was famous for asking his constituents this question: 'Hey! How'm I doing?' He insisted this was more than just shtick. He told NPR in 1981 that he really wanted to know. 'Some people have said that's a mark of insecurity. Gee, I have to be patted on the back, how'm I doing,' he said. 'I want you to think about this: Do you know people in public life who are sufficiently secure to ask people to rate them?' "

"[But] Koch's mouth finally cost him his job as mayor. His relationship with African-American voters — never great to begin with — soured for good when he suggested that Jews would be 'crazy' to vote for Jesse Jackson in 1988. The next year, Koch lost the Democratic primary to David Dinkins, who went on to be the city's first African-American mayor. Koch never ran for office again, but he never left the public eye, either.

"He did a stint behind the bench on the People's Court; he hosted a popular talk radio show; and he stayed active in politics, endorsing causes and candidates he favored, with little regard for party affiliation."

Then they return to their cells, Caesar's head bowed, Cassius subdued as the door clangs shut behind him and he surveys his spartan surroundings.

"Since I got to know art," he says, "this cell has become a prison."

Caesar Must Die

Directors: Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani

Genre: Drama

Running Time: 76 minutes

Not rated; some intense scenes

With: Cosimo Rega, Salvatore Striano, Giovanni Arcuri

(Recommended)

Everyone wants to go to a bar with Rosie Schaap. And not just because she can shake up a mean cocktail — you'd expect no less from the "Drink" columnist for The New York Times Magazine — but because a bar is the ideal setting for her insightful and endlessly funny stories. For those of us who can't make it to closing time with Rosie, however, Drinking With Men, her new collection of essays, is the next best thing. (Read NPR's review, and an excerpt from the book, here).

The "Dory Green"

2-1/2 oz. Canadian Club or Crown Royal whiskey

1/2 oz. dry vermouth

A scant teaspoon of Canadian Grade B maple syrup

2 dashes Brooklyn Hemispherical Rhubarb Bitters

Seltzer

To a mixing glass, add ice and all ingredients except seltzer. Shake like mad and pour into rocks glasses or small tumblers, leaving room for a good shpritz of seltzer to top it up.

Of all the individuals in President Obama's first-term Cabinet, physicist Steven Chu was arguably the least likely to be found in official Washington.

The Energy Department secretary, after all, was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from the University of California, Berkeley, the first science laureate to serve as a Cabinet secretary.

Chu announced on Friday that he would be stepping down. Which means that if President Obama was serious in this inaugural declaration — "We will respond to the threat of climate change" — he'll be doing it with an entirely new cast of lieutenants.

The three major Cabinet posts that deal with the issue — EPA, Interior and Energy — are now awaiting new leaders. The fourth leg in the climate change policy stool is the State Department, which must ultimately approve any decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline because it crosses international boundaries. And Friday was John Kerry's first day as the new secretary of state.

But Chu's pending exit offered a good chance to look back at what he brought to the Obama administration, and what his legacy could include.

Chu's resume would have stood out even if he hadn't won a Nobel.

He wasn't entirely an innocent when it came to the federal bureaucracy's ways. He was director of the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before being named to the department's top job. Still, amid the career politicians who largely filled the president's first-term Cabinet, his background made him an intriguing choice.

What Chu lacked in Washington political experience, he more than made up for in scientific brilliance and an accessible, easygoing, quick-witted style that came across in his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2009.

Asked by Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, if the incoming administration's cap-and-trade policy was the "politically best" position, Chu flattered Corker: "You're far more experienced about answering that question."

"Well, I don't know. You seem pretty good," responded Corker, prompting laughs from the audience.

Scientific expertise undoubtedly was needed in his attempt to foster new energy technologies to reduce the nation's reliance on fossil fuels. And Chu's academic stature and connections in academia and Silicon Valley helped him attract other really smart people with proven track records to DOE.

There they got going a group called ARPA-E, which was meant to be DOE's version of DARPA, the renowned Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that spearheaded the creation of the Internet, GPS and other technologies. (A side benefit of having all those brainiacs around was that they also figured out which method had the best chance of stopping the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.)

With funding from the American Recovery Act — the more than $800 billion economic stimulus legislation Obama signed in early 2009 — ARPA-E funded a number of cutting-edge technologies. Its competitive grants were meant to kick-start promising projects that would attract the interest of private investors. (For instance, there are microbes engineered to turn hydrogen and carbon dioxide into liquid fuel.)

As Michael Grunwald wrote in The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era, ARPA-E was a small part of the stimulus, a mere 0.05 percent. "The stimulus was only partly about stimulus. It was also about metamorphosis. ... Most of its breakthroughs won't produce results for years. But it's emblematic of the [Recovery Act's] assault on the status quo."

It's true that Chu's tenure will be remembered in part for the controversy over government loan guarantees to the failed Solyndra solar company.

But if ARPA-E winds up midwifing a technology that changes the nation's energy equation in a positive way, that could prove to be Chu's ultimate legacy as energy secretary.