I said, to be a New Yorker you have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you're a New Yorker.

New York: Kensington Books. Later city councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) introduced legislation banning the naming of New York City property after people who are still alive. W.

A popular figure he rode the New York City Subways and stood at street corners greeting passersby with the slogan "How'm I doin'?" His private life was enigmatic with speculation about his sexuality which he rebuffed as nobody's business but his own; he had no children and no publicly acknowledged romantic relationships but declared his heterosexuality after his retirement. He died on February 1 2013 of congestive heart failure.