A Yorkville memorial for Lou Gehrig

Yankee great Lou Gehrig was born in Yorkville on June 19, 1903. But exactly where isn’t clear.

According to this plaque put up in 1990 by the New York Yankees organization, his first home—probably a typical city tenement building—was at or about 309 East 94th Street. Located there now is a branch of Mount Sinai Medical Center. 

But other sources identify Gehrig’s childhood home at 1994 Second Avenue, near 103rd Street.

Apparently there was a plaque set up in memory of the Iron Horse here too, but the business that occupied the site, a garden store, moved out, and no plaque remains.

Wherever he spent his early years, Gehrig is definitely a son of New York City. He and his German immigrant parents moved to Washington Heights when he was a boy; Gehrig later attended Commerce High School, on the Upper West Side.

Then he was off to Columbia—where his mother happened to work as a cook in a fraternity house—to play football and baseball.

That’s where a couple of Yankee scouts discovered him, and the rest is baseball history.

In honor of opening day

Reggie Jackson is scheduled to throw the first pitch today. I was never much of a Reggie fan, but I sure did like his candy bar. Amazingly, in the mid-90s, my local Gristedes on West 14th and 7th Avenue still had them for sale.