New York Family Ties

People must have thought we were very peculiar strolling slowly down Park Avenue in New York, and stopping to peer at each polished brass standpipe outside the dignified apartment houses and office buildings along the way. 

The reason we were strolling down Park Avenue was that we were going to see the building Mr. W's mother grew up in -- on the top floor of #970 on the corner of East 83rd Street and Park.  The reason we were peering at all the standpipes is that my great-great-grandfather owned a plumbing business in the city, and the pipes pictured here are examples of his work.

Here is a description of him written by my uncle John:  "John came from Ireland to New York sometime in 1860.  He became a plumber and eventually a plumbing contractor.  My father, as a small boy, remembered him, and said he was a giant of a man versed in the Greek and Latin classics.  He had a daughter and two sons, one of whom, John Stephen Murphy -- my grandfather -- carried the plumbing business on with acumen.  His firm did a great amount of plumbing in the New York subways and buildings like the old Ritz-Carlton, Grand Central Station, and the Biltmore Hotel where the brass standpipes, bearing his name, can still be seen today."  

As you can see, we were successful in finding both family connections!

Update:  I've just heard from my cousin via Facebook that "there used to be a big brass standpipe at the Biltmore and legend had it that the aunts used to polish it up whenever they were passing to go in or out of Grand Central Station."