Seymour George Epstein was a working-class New Yorker who spent most of his career in public service. He worked as a groundskeeper and gardener for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Before that, he was a construction laborer and worked for his father's house-wrecking company.

Seymour and his wife raised their sons Jeffrey and Mark in Sea Gate, a private gated community in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. Former neighbors and acquaintances described them as a "quiet and humble" couple.