With a little time to kill before a dance performance, the Brawny Sherpa and I are toodling around (read: driving aimlessly through) Hawthorne, NY when we happen upon Gate of Heaven Cemetery. “Babe Ruth is buried here,” my sport enthusiast spouse mentions. And with that, we’ve driven through the gates in search of a single grave in and are on a winding road through a hilly cemetery. Will we be able to locate Babe Ruth’s grave?
This post may contain affiliate links in which the Bashful Adventurer earns a small commission if you click on the link and make a purchase from the site.
Where Exactly Is Babe Ruth Buried?
In my next life, I’m going to make interactive digital cemetery maps so that visitors can more easily locate the graves of famous people or anyone else they happen to be searching for. Thanks to the Google, I’m able to enter the coordinates of this most famous baseball player’s final resting place. Should you need them:
41o05’25.2”N 73o47’49.1”W
The final leg of our journey will be on foot—this place is steep, but Ruth’s grave is unmistakable, albeit surrounded by a bit of shrubbery. Who else would have a grave depicting Jesus giving the peace sign to a youthful baseball player?
Where Is the Gate of Heaven Cemetery?
A Pilgrimage to Babe Ruth’s Grave
I am surprised by the number of baseballs and bats we find at the grave of George Herman “Babe” Ruth. It seems players of all sorts have made pilgrimages here, hoping for what? A dose of extraordinary talent to morph their way? To hear some encouraging words from the beyond? A bit of luck?
I marvel that Ruth remains so vividly in the collective memory decades after his death. What do I know of him? That he holds a record for home runs, that he seemed a hero during the bleak Depression era, that he didn’t begin his career with the Yankees, that he perhaps indulged in a bit of a hard living. Somehow I carry an image in my head of him wearing a uniform and smoking cigars.
I don’t know whether leaving a baseball at the grave of a great makes its bearer feel better, but it’s nice to see a tribute to someone so long gone.
Gate of Heaven Cemetery, 10 West Stevens Avenue, Hawthorne, NY 10532
—Lori Tripoli
Lori Tripoli is the editor and publisher of Bashful Adventurer. Based in the New York City vicinity, she writes about travel for a variety of publications. Contact Lori at loritripoli @ bashfuladventurer.com.
Are you interested in cemetery tourism? You might like these posts:
Share on Pinterest!