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Former residentFrom about 1908, through his school yearsAudubon / W 165th St

Lou Gehrig

Born in Yorkville, Gehrig grew up in Washington Heights from about age five, near Hilltop Park and the Polo Grounds, and attended P.S. 132 before Commerce High School.

Near Hilltop Park (now NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia)

Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees in his pinstriped uniform and cap, cropped from a 1937 All-Star photograph.
Harris & Ewing (opens in a new tab)Public domain
Lou Gehrig in his Columbia University uniform, 1921
University Archives—Columbiana Library, Columbia University. (opens in a new tab)Public domain

Lou Gehrig was born in Yorkville in 1903, according to the Society for American Baseball Research biography. When he was five, SABR says, his family moved to Washington Heights, to an apartment within shouting distance of Hilltop Park, where the New York Highlanders played. The Polo Grounds were also nearby. SABR says living near those ballparks gave him an early love of baseball, and that he played pickup games in the neighborhood and attended Giants games when he could afford a bleacher seat.

Wikipedia’s Washington Heights article says Gehrig attended P.S. 132 in the 1910s. SABR says he enrolled at Commerce High School in Manhattan in 1917. The Highlanders’ Hilltop Park stood on Broadway between W 165th and 168th Sts and was later replaced by the Columbia medical center complex.