For most of his entire, exhilarating career, Lou Gehrig, the "Pride of Yankees," lived in New Rochelle. While the strapping young man grew to fame cracking homerun shots off stadium billboards and rivaling teammate Babe Ruth in crowd-delighting triumphs, his idle hours were simply spent in or near his home at 9 Meadow Lane in New Rochelle.
Nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, Gehrig played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees (1923 - 1939) and became their team captain in 1935. He set several major league records including the most career grand slams (23), the most home runs by a first baseman (493) and most famously his 2,130 streak of consecutive games played - a record broken by Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles in 1995.
By 1928, Gehrig had purchased the New Rochelle home for himself and his parents. Here, "Ma" Gehrig cooked-up memorable meals of sauerbraten, fried chicken and fried eels (Lou's favorite) for her son, Babe Ruth and their Yankee teammates. On the rare summer evenings he was not on the field, Gehrig was in New Rochelle hitting balls with some lucky neighborhood kids, playing cards with the guys up at the Elks Club on Banks Street, fishing in Echo Bay. He could also be found "stretched out on the swing" of the Meadow Lane porch - at least, that is, until 1933. That was the year he married his wife, Elinor, in their New Rochelle apartment on Circuit Avenue. For the full story on their wedding, please see our September 29, 2016 blog entry.
Gehrig's consecutive games streak came to an end in 1939, as a result of his neuromuscular disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, later known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease." "The Iron Horse" was inducted into the Hall of Fane that year. Henry Louis Gehrig died on June 4, 1941.
Gehrig was among the initial inductees into the New Rochelle Walk of Fame in 2011.
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