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AccessibilityGertrude Ederle Recreation Center
W. 59 St., W. 60 St., bet. Amsterdam Ave. and W. End Ave.
Manhattan
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This Recreation Center is named in honor of Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003), who was a world-class swimmer and the first woman to swim across the English Channel.
Born to German immigrants, Ederle was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at 108 Amsterdam Avenue, above her father’s butcher shop. As a girl, her father taught her how to swim at their summer cottage in New Jersey. By her late teens, she was a champion swimmer and a member of the Women’s Swimming Association. Ederle went on to win several medals, including the gold at the Paris 1924 Olympics, and held twenty-nine national and world amateur records by 1925.
On August 6, 1926, Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Departing from Cap Gris Nez, France, she landed on the shores of Kingsdown in Kent, England in 14 hours and 39 minutes.
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