William Joseph Collins

William Joseph Collins, 94, passed away on September 20, 2025. He was the first born of four children to an Irish immigrant laborer family on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a neighborhood and tenant building filled with co-ethnics and co-religious. A ‘child of the Depression’ and a youth during the war, Billy went straight to work right after graduating Rice High School, to the midtown offices of General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), in the nascent computer operations department, where he remained until retirement. As a child and throughout his years living and working in the city, Billy enjoyed much of what the old neighborhood and the larger city had to offer, especially following sports at the old Madison Square Garden and the old Yankee Stadium, as well as the racetrack at Belmont. Beloved ‘Uncle Billy’ was a loyal and good-hearted gentleman, who put family first, and remained forever true and generous. Billy is survived by his brother Thomas’s widow Muriel. He is also survived by their children, and their families; nephew Dennis Collins, his wife Mary nee Geraghty, and their two children Liam and Sarah; niece Elizabeth Eghrari and her husband Mark and their two children Ryan and Kevin; niece Deirdre Auchincloss and her husband Paul and their three children Meaghan, Thomas and John, and by nephew Christopher. Also, Billy was delighted in 2024 to welcome new family members Charlize, Kevin's wife, and Samantha, Ryan's wife, and to learn, just days before his passing, that Samantha and Ryan had become new parents as Samantha delivered a healthy baby boy. A lifelong Catholic, Billy was a regular parishioner at his home neighborhood parish of St. Francis de Sales until the mid-1970’s when he moved into the then newly built Ruppert Towers complex and became a member of Our Lady of Good Counsel Roman Catholic Church. A Funeral Mass will be held at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Friday, September 26, 2025, at 11:00 a.m., and burial will be private for the family.