Walter John Mulcahy, upstate NY retailer

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, August 27, 2012

ALBANY, N.Y. - Walter John Mulcahy, founder of retailer Taft Furniture here, has died at age 88.
     He attended Manhattan College until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, serving from 1942 to 1945. After his honorable discharge, he received his bachelor's degree from Siena College.
     At the request of his parents, he joined his father and began to sell used furniture. Later, he developed a successful new furniture showroom known as Mulcahy's Furniture on River Street in Troy, N.Y.
     An urban renewal reconstruction of the River Front in Troy in the early 1970s put an end to Mulcahy's Furniture. Walter Mulcahy then opened the first Furniture Warehouse and Showroom, Taft, in Albany, N.Y. Today, the company also has a store in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
     Survivors include his wife; three sons, including John Mulcahy, who now runs Taft Furniture; one daughter and three grandchildren.