Bling Bling and the Optimist (Part I)

Murph’s big meeting

As he wheeled back from his big, cluttered desk, George Murphy looked a gruff sort of character with unkempt, bushy gray hair topping a six foot frame lavished with twenty surplus pounds. A fixture in Wall Street’s private dining rooms for over 50 years, Murph still manages conservative money from spacious but anachronistic offices on the 23d floor of the venerable Equitable Building in lower Manhattan. Over the years he has hosted dignitaries here, interviewed the reigning cognoscenti and grilled into discomfort a wide assortment of Warren Buffett wannabees.