By Edith Honan NEW YORK, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch was memorialized on Monday as an in-your-face, wisecracking leader who helped transform the city from a symbol of urban decay to the vital, glittering metropolis it is today. As Koch's casket was led out of Temple Emanu-El, a soaring Fifth Ave. synagogue opposite Central Park, an organ played Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" while mourners including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and a who's who of New York politics stood and applauded.

Ed Koch, the tough, fast-talking mayor of New York in the turbulent 1970s and 1980s and credited with rescuing the nation's largest city from financial ruin, died Friday, aged 88. Koch, a witty and larger than life figure who remained a frequent public presence up to his last days, had been suffering heart and other health problems. The current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, praised Koch as a "tireless, fearless and guileless civic leader" for his role in pulling New York back from the brink of financial collapse in the late 1970s.

* Bold, blunt and abrasive, he was city's biggest booster * Credited with New York's fiscal recovery in late 1970s * New Yorker to the core, Koch remained a political force (Adds details throughout) By Edith Honan and Chris Michaud NEW YORK, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Ed Koch, the voluble three-term mayor who helped bring New York back from the brink of fiscal ruin in the 1970s and came to embody the city with his wry, outspoken style, died on Friday at the age of 88.