New York's beloved native son, Lou Gehrig was born to German immigrant parents in upper Manhattan in 1903, but not many people these days remember where. In 1953, Gehrig's birthplace, a four-story apartment building (that later became a laundry), was adorned with the large bronze plaque offered here.
An August 22nd, 1953 New York Times article chronicling the dedication of the plaque reads in part,
“Baseball Men of the Past and Present Join in Tribute Here With Youngsters to Whom Ex-Yank Is Only a Heroic Legend
Youngsters to whom the name Lou Gehrig has only a vaguely heroic ring mingled in East Ninety-fourth Street yesterday with baseball veterans who had been intimately associated with the great Yankee first baseman, and with a few, like Connie Mack, who were leaders in the game when Gehrig himself was a boy.
The occasion was the unveiling of a plaque at the site where Gehrig was born on June 19, 1903. In those days it was a drab four-story, fourteen-family building, numbered 309 East. Since 1928, it has been the plant of the Consolidated Laundries Corporation. Laundry workers crowded the upper windows for a glimpse of Mayor Impellitteri, Baseball Commissioner Ford C. Frick and the old-time stars during the ceremony.
Mrs. Christine Gehrig, Lou's mother, sat at the Mayor's right. Others on the platform included Henry Schneider, who was team manager for the High School of Commerce nine on which Gehrig starred, and which won the 1920 national high school championship. Paul Krichell, who first saw Gehrig play in a Columbia-Rutgers game at New Brunswick a few years later and who brought him to the Yankees, and Bill Dickey, Gehrig's old team-mate…”
Decades later, the building and property occupied by Consolidated Laundries was sold and renovated. Prior to the sale, the company’s Board Members voted unanimously to preserve the plaque by presenting it to their Vice President. It is being offered here on behalf of the family of that gentleman. Cast in heavy bronze, it measures 18” by 27”. Among its proclamations, it identifies Gehrig as “A New Yorker, A Great Yankee Ballplayer, An American”. A family letter of provenance and a copy of the Times article which pictures the plaque being unveiled are included.
Originally sold at SCP/SOTHEBY'S in 2005 for $21,600.
Estimate: $30,000+