4. Babe Ruth Walked Around in his Silk Bathrobe

Babe Ruth in 1919. Photo from Library of Congress.

Many Yankees players made The Ansonia home, and Babe Ruth moved in with wife in tow after the Red Sox sold his contract to the New York team. Ruth’s apartment became a clubhouse for card games and parties. According to Gaines, Ruth “thought of the entire hotel as an extension of his apartment…[he] would sometimes wear his scarlet silk bathrobe down in the elevator to the basement barbershop for his morning shave. He was inspired to take up the saxophone while living at the Ansonia, and his squeaky bleatings were familiar up and down the hallways on his floor.”