It is rare these days to find love stories that have endured for years and even decades. So we were excited to hear about a couple celebrating 44 years of marriage whose romance sparked on our last ship, the Lila Acheson Wallace. The couple, Bruce and Pati Richards, will join us at our annual gala on June 10 at the Edison Ballroom.
Bruce wanted to commemorate this year’s wedding anniversary with a commissioned portrait of our boat and the Moran Towing Company tugboat that pushed it around New York Harbor. He was a deckhand on the tug and Pati was a student nurse working onboard the ship during the summer when they met. He contacted us in search of a photograph of the boat and tug worthy of such an endeavor. When we heard the story, we were charmed and intrigued.
Telling the story requires a trip back in time to the summer of 1978. Visions of John Travolta as Tony Manero walking the steaming pavement of Brooklyn to the disco beat of the BeeGees mega hit “Staying Alive” were still dancing in heads of New York City’s strivers and dreamers as the summer dawned on new blockbusters such as Travolta’s star turn in “Grease,” and Christopher Reeve as “Superman.” Reruns of “Charlie’s Angels,” “Three’s Company,” and the infamous “Happy Days” episode where Fonzie “jumps the shark” could be seen on TV. Jimmy Carter was president, Van Halen released its first album, Space Invaders was introduced in arcades and the comic strip “Garfield” had just debuted.
After the drama and panic of the previous summer’s blackout and Son of Sam serial murders, it was a return mostly to normalcy in the city. But the course of two lives would be altered forever once their romance blossomed on the water.
Before we became a land-based facility, The Floating Hospital treated patients during the summer with boat rides that provided healthcare, aid and recreation to New Yorkers in need. Moran was a family-owned and oriented company, where Bruce’s father worked and arranged for a summer job for him while he attended St. John’s University. After graduation, Bruce decided to stick with it. “It was a fun job” and he liked the assignment.
Right before that summer, which was between her junior and senior year at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, Pati O’Keeffe saw a notice for employment for The Floating Hospital and she and her friend applied. “This is when The Floating Hospital was based at the South Street Seaport, when it was still really hardscrabble and the Fulton Fish Market was there, not at all like it is today. My parents thought I was crazy.”
They found dorm rooms at the New York University Medical School on 34th Street. The salary was $13 a day, but it was “a really wonderful thing,” she recently recalled. “I was outside everyday, dressed in shorts, floating around Manhattan.” It also came with benefits such as a free breakfast and lunch, as well as Friday night socials on the boat.
The nurses knew Bruce because, as the deckhand on the tugboat, he helped push the barge around every day. Pati remembers passing by and saying hello, but it wasn’t until they connected during one of those Friday night parties that she got to know Bruce. “We had a really good time that night,” she said. Not long after, a social worker for The Floating Hospital found her and said “Oh Pati, there’s this really good looking guy in a Datsun 280-Z asking for you! That was the beginning of our dating time.”
For their first official date, Bruce took her to Marchi’s (an institution on East 31st Street, which closed in 2019 after 90 years of business). As poor college students, Pati and her friend would explore the neighborhood around their dorm for entertainment, and they became fascinated by the pretty brownstone and the stylish diners within. She recalled thinking, “Darn, if he knew that, I guess I’ll keep on dating him, because that was a great first date.”
Pati graduated in 1979 and they were married in 1981. She began her professional nursing career, first in Mount Sinai’s oncology, medical, and surgical departments, and then for several years at NYU in the operating room. They moved from the city, first to New Jersey, when Moran was still in the World Trade Center, and then to Connecticut in 1986 when the company relocated to Greenwich. It is now based in New Canaan and Bruce is vice president.
In 1980, Bruce “went to shore” and started working closely with the head of the company at that time, Tom Moran. “He had different ideas, and he was into transportation. We ended up building barges.” He found himself there at the beginning of the expansion, which included a transportation system. “I like the chartering end of it, doing contracts and that sort of thing. So I gravitated to that and found a nice niche for myself over the years.” It’s been 48 years since he began working for the company, and he will retire this year.
Pati continued nursing. A few years after they married, they welcomed their daughter Becky, who trained to be a lawyer but is now a head researcher for the fundraising department of UC Davis. Kaitlyn arrived a few years later. She is a graphic designer and the Art Director in the marketing department for the travel website Kayak. Both live in Connecticut. Pati kept working with positions at hospitals, doctors offices and finally as a school nurse in the town where they live. “If I had to rate all of my jobs, the operating room and then the school nurse would be my favorites,” she said. She retired three years ago, but still does eye screening as a volunteer for the Lion’s Club. In 2008, she christened a Moran tug named in her honor, the Pati R. Moran. “It was really exciting and an honor,” she said.
Bruce commissioned the Dutch artist Willem Hoendervanger to transform one of our photographs into a masterpiece of photo realism. After it was completed, the Richards family had him make a large format print of the painting for our offices. Although our history is tied to the sea, we had to give up our downtown berth after it was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. With our main clinic now in Long Island City for many years, having those seafaring days brought to life in such a tangible and personal way was a treat for all who have heard their story.
If you would like to join them and the many others helping us do even more with our “more than healthcare” model of service at our summer benefit, Anchor Hope, please visit our website or contact Ann-Louise Lipman at alipman@thefloatinghospital.org.
