Fifty Years on Jessop Place

Most bars do not make it five years. Murph’s has made it fifty.

The building on Jessop Place started as a small beer bar. In 1975, Art Murphy took it over and gave it the name it still carries. The story goes that it opened as Murph’s Study Hall on June 10 of that year, and the name stuck, half joke and half promise, for the students who have been coming ever since.

In the early 1980s, Art handed the bar to his son, Tom. That is the part people tend to forget about a place like this. It does not survive because of one good year. It survives because somebody decides to keep it going, and then somebody after them decides the same thing.

In 2017, Pete and Tina took over. New owners, same bar. The regulars still came. The grilled cheese still got made. The dance floor still filled up on the right nights.

What has not changed

Walk in today and you are standing where thousands of people have stood before you. First dates. Last calls before graduation. The night a friend moved away and everyone came out to see them off. Fifty years of ordinary evenings that turned out to matter more than they seemed to at the time.

The drinks are still fair. The staff still know the regulars. And the door is still open to anyone who wants to pull up a stool and become one.

Why we tell this story

We are not writing this to sound old. We are writing it because a place that has lasted this long belongs a little bit to the whole town, and the people who made it what it is deserve the credit. Art. Tom. Pete and Tina. Every bartender who closed the place down and opened it back up the next day.

If Murph’s has been part of your York, we would love to hear about it. Come in, tell us your version, and add a chapter.

Murph’s Study Hall. A York tradition since 1975.