By Gus Saltonstall
Babe Ruth is an iconic figure of New York City sports but fewer people know that he was an Upper West Sider.
Ruth lived with his family at 345 West 88th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside, for more than a decade from 1929 to 1940.
Now, his former apartment is back on the market for $1.59 million, as the New York Post first reported.
The unit has three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, and is on the seventh floor. The apartment was last on the market in 2015. When Ruth lived there, the apartment had 12 rooms, but the unit was subsequently divided into two homes.
Ruth played for the New York Yankees for 14 years and ended his career with 714 home runs, which stood as the most any for any single player until 1974.
There is a plaque on the front of 345 West 88th Street for Ruth, who also lived for a period at 173 Riverside Drive, between 89th and 90th streets.
You can find out more about the available former home of the Great Bambino — HERE.
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The Babe Ruth apartment is a pretty good deal, though maintenance is fairly high.
It’s increasingly pretty standard for apartments of this size in the neighborhood. The ones that are significantly lower either have already done a lot of the expensive work needed of a building their age, or it’s in their future and they haven’t assessed it yet.
I walked by any many times. What is going on with the market that it is only selling for 0.1million more than when it was bought 9 years ago?
A. Tons of competition from new “luxury” condo and or rental construction. People simply have more options than a decade ago. More supply is in pipeline and or planned for development.
Older multi-family buildings face stiff competition from modern amenity filled luxury housing. This includes but isn’t limited to modern HVAC/climate control systems, in unit W&D and so forth.
B. Cooperative apartments in general are taking longer to sell and or for less thanks to somewhat long running hate against whole “co-op board approval” process. People would often rather buy in a new condo buildings.
C. Switch in preference from owing to renting for many upper income households. Happily for them there is lots of new luxury rental housing and more is coming online. Especially post covid people don’t want to be tied down to RE. But rather prefer to pack up and leave quickly without worry and hassle of selling current apartment.
D. Dreaded words “over paid”. Some people simply paid too much for their apartment. Even after much renovation and other work they still cannot get anyone to pay what they believe is a good asking price.
Good flag. The brokers don’t like to talk about it and the press only follows average prices which includes splashy new builds dragging-up the averages.
But if you spend a lot of time on Streeteasy you can see this happening across the neighborhood. I think there are a few causes:
1) 2017 tax law capped deductibility of property taxes. Units like this probably pay $15-20K/year in property taxes, which can’t be deducted. It increases the cost of owning housing.
2) Property tax bills have been increasing above-inflation for most of the last 15/20 years. This increases the costs of owning housing.
3) The City continues to push unfunded mandates which can be debated on the merits, but all of these measures increase the cost of owning housing. Think of FISP, composing, water bills, etc.
All of these costs depress housing prices. I’m all for lower housing prices! But we should acknowledge that the lower prices are probably because our politicians are unsustainably increasing the cost of ownership.
People are still buying, so it must just be an UWS thing.
Meanwhile across Central Park UES real estate both rental and sales are red hot.
https://www.curbed.com/article/ues-limestone-condos-new-development-lexington-destination.html
https://www.6sqft.com/mets-shortstop-francisco-lindor-buys-20m-ues-penthouse/
200 East 75th street is 70% sold and hasn’t even completed construction.
https://newyorkyimby.com/2025/03/construction-nearing-completion-at-200-east-75th-street-in-manhattans-upper-east-side.html
Charming, quaint or whatever you want to call old buildings not everyone sees things that way. Market has spoken and people want new construction. More to point they are willing to pay even with today’s so called “high mortgage” rates.
While there are many factors, interest rates are probably the most direct variable in what people can pay for a home.
Have you seen the stock market the past 48 hours?
Except this has been going on for many apartments for awhile now.
Ruth also lived for a short time at the Ansonia. But he died while living at 110 Riverside Drive on the corner of Wet 83rd Street. His widow remained there until her own death. I used to see her, and she even gave me a poster of Ruth for my wall (I was about 15). She was a very nice lady.
Interesting that it was 110, too. The sister building 118 RSD claims Ruth lived there. It’s not impossible it was both, of course. Or are they are treating the conjoined twin buildings as one? https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/riverside-dr-west-end-ave/118-riverside-drive/40687
I was born early in the year he died. At birth I was living with my mother in her parent’s place… at 110 RSD. Part of my family history was the day when my mother and I ran into him in the lobby… the story goes that he said “cute kid” and pinched me on the cheek. Much as I try to, I simply can not remember that!