Meet the Central Park Bagpiper

By Cheryl Wischhover

New Yorkers go to Central Park to escape the hustle and bustle of the streets. But on top of the birdsong and the sound of leaves blowing in the breeze, the park can be just as noisy as the rest of the city, with helicopters overhead and the seemingly never-ending construction racket at the new pool complex near the Harlem Meer.

If you’re lucky, though, you can also catch Lieutenant Robert Walsh practicing his bagpipes on a sunny afternoon. 

The first few times I encountered Walsh, 55, standing alongside his FDNY/EMS rig playing his pipes toward the west side of the 102nd Street Transverse, I did what any self-respecting New Yorker does upon encountering such a sight: I videoed it and posted it on my Instagram story with a caption along the lines of “NYC is so great.” I found it charming. And who doesn’t love to feel something when bagpipes are playing? Queen Elizabeth II even had a bagpiper wake her up every morning. 

But Walsh doesn’t practice outside because he is seeking Instagram fame. He just wants to be a good neighbor. 

“In my building, we used to have a lot of Broadway actors and musicians. You’d hear pianos or people singing. This isn’t a piano. It’s so…loud,” said Walsh, laughing. 

So he brings his bagpipes to the Transverse, Inwood Hill Park, and Grant’s Tomb in Riverside Park to practice when he has downtime on the job, his radio always within reach. 

Walsh, who lives in Inwood, is a mild-mannered guy with a quick smile, a down-to-earth attitude, and a penchant for triathlons. He has been an EMT/paramedic with the FDNY since 2000, though it wasn’t his first calling. He went to film school to study animation and ended up in New York City to break into that industry. He became a Production Assistant and then an accountant, eventually ending up working on the first season of “a little-known show,” Walsh said. That show? Law and Order: SVU. But with a writers’ strike looming and other industry issues, no one Walsh worked with thought the show would get picked up for a second season. 

“You’d work on a project for two months, three months, six months, and then you could be unemployed,” says Walsh. “It just wasn’t doable.” He and his wife wanted a family, so job security became a priority. He knew people in the FDNY and he had enjoyed first aid as a Boy Scout, so he did a certificate program at night to become an EMT. He eventually became a paramedic (a role that can perform more intensive medical procedures) and now does calls on both the Upper West and East Sides, as well as managing a fleet of first responders and ambulances as a lieutenant. 

(Because he spends a lot of time on both sides of the park, I had to ask if he prefers the food on the UWS or the UES. He did not hesitate. “The west side!” he said. Absolute Bagels is a favorite. (“I’m there when they open at 5:30.” )

 The day after Walsh accepted an offer at the FDNY, SVU got picked up for two more seasons — and then 22 more after that. But Walsh says he has no regrets and has never looked back, even through 9/11 and COVID.

The events of 9/11 and its aftermath led to the formation of the FDNY EMS Pipes and Drums Band. Pipes and drum bands have a storied history in NYC and beyond, especially among first responders and service-corp types. The NYPD and FDNY firefighters both have bands, but so does the Department of Sanitation and the Union of Elevator Constructors. The FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums Band plays at funerals for fallen firefighters and emergency workers in the department, but two FDNY/EMS members thought the service should have its own band to play for its members, many of whom were succumbing to post-9/11 diseases. So in 2006, the FDNY EMS Pipes and Drums became the scrappier little sibling to the Emerald Society, its 20 members playing funerals, parades, and parties. The band has met with the Prime Minister of Ireland and played at Yankee Stadium. 

Walsh, who worked the morgue at the World Trade Center in the days following the attack, joined the band at its inception. He had no background in music, so he started on the snare drum, which he says was the easiest instrument to learn. In 2020, he decided to learn the bagpipes, taking advantage of inexpensive lessons offered by the band and way too much time on his hands in the early days of the pandemic. He finally bought a set of pipes from The Piper’s Cove in Kearny, NJ. They can cost $2,000 and up, so he’s fully committed now. 

“Amazing Grace” and military tunes are bagpipe standards, but Walsh jokingly calls the traditional Irish tunes the band plays “the original country songs. They’re always about someone going off to war, someone losing their loved one. Everything but a pickup truck!”

Along with sparing his neighbors the cacophony, practicing in the cold weather is good prep for when Walsh needs to perform outside. The attention he gets from passersby is usually positive. He says a lot of people who stop to chat usually have some connection to the bagpipes, such as a family member who played. It’s also a pretty striking sight to come upon. “If I was playing a guitar, I’m sure they wouldn’t stop,” he said.

Mostly, the pipes give Walsh some respite from his stressful day job. “It’s just something positive.”

Cheryl Wischhover is a freelance reporter who has covered beauty, fashion, fitness, and retail for more than a decade.

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