Murray Hill

Murray Hill is the area of midtown Manhattan bounded by East 34th Street, East 40th Street, Madison Avenue and Third Avenue. The Murray family—shipping and overseas trade merchants—arrived in the 1750s, and soon after rented land from the city for a great house and farm. They built their house, named Inclenberg but popularly called Murray Hill, on the corner of what is now Park Avenue and 36th Street. Murray Hill, the typeface, was designed for the American Type Founders (ATF) in 1956 by Emil J Klumpp. I always imagined that Murray Hill was named for the Manhattan neighbourhood, but in fact the inspiration came from the small town of Murray Hill in New Jersey. There is a connection however: the New Jersey town was founded by Carl H Schultz, whose mineral water business was at one time located in New York’s Murray Hill.