Here's to you, Mayor Murray

The lobby of Rockville Centre’s Village Hall was packed on Nov. 24 as village officials and well-wishers gathered to dedicate the building to former Mayor Eugene Murray.

Village Hall, which opened in 1892 as South Side High School, is now formally known as Eugene J. Murray Village Hall. It was first named after the former mayor in 2007, after former Village Attorney Martha Krisel wrote a letter to the Herald advocating a renaming. The village board liked the idea, and voted unanimously to approve the renaming.

“In so doing, the board voted an extraordinary honor on an extraordinary citizen in recognition of an extraordinary 20 years in office,” said Mayor Mary Bossart.

At the ceremony last Tuesday, the building was officially named after Murray — even though the sign outside has sported his name for quite a while —- and a plaque was unveiled in the lobby commemorating the naming. “Mayor Murray, the village and its citizens will long be in your debt for the planning, improvements and policies put in place during your years in office,” Bossart told the day’s honoree. “There is no area of village life that isn’t better today than it was in 1987.”

After unveiling the bronzed plaque with Bossart, Murray took the microphone and thanked the crowd, many of whom were past or present village officials and employees. “I thank each and every one of you coming here today,” he said. “I could never have done this without the staff I had and the village employees that were just absolutely wonderful.”

Murray recounted how he first decided to run for mayor. When he was chief of the village Fire Department, he said, one of his friends told him he should run. “I told him he was out of his mind,” Murray said to laughs from the crowd. But after some persuading, he changed his mind and ran — and lost by seven votes.

In the next election, he made a bid for village trustee and won, and from there he went on to his 20-year term as mayor.