The Hill: A Fifty-Two Block Forge of American Greatness

On Elizabeth Avenue in the 1930s, a peculiar miracle of proximity unfolded. At 5447 Elizabeth Avenue, Lorenzo Pietro Berra — whom everyone would come to know as Yogi — lived in a small brick bungalow. Directly across the street at 5446 Elizabeth Avenue, born exactly nine months after Yogi, lived Joseph Henry Garagiola. The Hill STL

On June 1, 2003, the city renamed this stretch of Elizabeth Avenue to "Hall of Fame Place" — the only street in America to honor three Baseball Hall of Famers who lived on the same block. FOX 2 St. Louis

The Three Honorees

The statistical improbability defies comprehension: two future Hall of Fame catchers growing up close enough to shout across the street to each other. Granite plaques now mark the Hall of Fame induction dates in front of both former homes.

The Hill occupies approximately fifty-two square blocks in southwest St. Louis, bounded by Manchester Avenue to the north, Southwest and Columbia Avenues to the south, South Kingshighway Boulevard to the east, and Hampton Avenue to the west. The neighborhood sits on high ground south of Forest Park — the Italians from Cuggiono called it La Montagna (The Mountain). Wikipedia

Complete Self-Sufficiency

What made The Hill remarkable was its complete self-sufficiency. Residents rarely needed to leave because everything they required — grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, barber shops, tailor shops, churches — existed within walking distance. The streets were narrow, lined with small brick houses and shotgun homes, many built with clay bricks from the very mines where residents worked.

The Shotgun House

The shotgun house became the architectural signature of The Hill — narrow rectangular residences typically no more than 12 feet wide, with rooms arranged one behind another with doors at each end. The design earned its name from the notion that a shotgun blast fired through the front door would travel cleanly out the back.

The Boundaries

Irish immigrants discovered the clay deposits beneath this high ground in the 1830s. By 1854-55, the Evens and Howard Fire Brick Company opened clay mines and processing facilities. By 1910, more than a dozen brick and tile factories operated along the banks of the River Des Peres. Rome of the West

The Work

The work was brutal: mining done underground by "pick and blast" in shafts reaching depths of nearly 100 feet. But it was work, and word traveled back to Italy. The clay was exceptional — high-quality refractory material that could withstand the extreme temperatures required for industrial furnaces, kilns, and steel-making equipment.

Chain Migration

The first Italian immigrants began arriving in the 1880s, primarily from Lombardy in northern Italy — particularly the villages of Cuggiono, Inveruno, and Marcallo con Casone. A significant minority came from Sicily. The pattern was textbook chain migration: young men arrived first, living in boarding houses. When labor demand increased, they sent for sons, brothers, cousins, and village mates. The Hill STL

The first reason for the Hill's stability is that its immigrant residents were not uprooted, but transplanted.

— Gary Mormino, historian Amazon

By 1910, the population was 90% Italian. The neighborhood was so homogeneous that outsiders called it "Dago Hill" — a name Garagiola referenced in his book Baseball Is a Funny Game.

At the heart of The Hill stood St. Ambrose Catholic Church, founded in 1903 as a mission church and established as an independent parish in 1907 under Father Lucian Carotti. The original wooden frame church burned in 1921. The Hill STL

A Church Built from Their Own Earth

What rose in its place — dedicated June 27, 1926 — was a statement of immigrant permanence. The new church was designed by architect Angelo Corrubia in Lombard Romanesque Revival style, modeled after the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan. The building materials carried profound symbolic weight: the brick and terra cotta were likely mined by parishioners from the deposits deep beneath The Hill itself.

Church members pledged $1 per month for five years to fund construction. Upon completing their donation, contributors received certificates of gratitude. The church was literally built by its congregation.

Immigrant Statue

Outside the church stands the Immigrant Statue, created in 1972 by sculptor Rudolph Torrini: a man holding a suitcase and a woman carrying a child — a testimony to the determination and hope that built this neighborhood.

Piazza Imo

An 11,000-square-foot Italian-inspired garden dedicated August 18, 2019, directly across from St. Ambrose. Features a hand-sculpted Carrara marble fountain and prayer gardens. A memorial column lists the 23 men from The Hill who never returned from WWII.

Beyond the church, The Hill developed an intricate network of social institutions that reinforced community bonds across generations.

Bocce

Milo's Bocce Garden at 5201 Wilson Avenue began as an Anheuser-Busch tavern built in 1902; bocce courts were added in 1989. The Italia America Bocce Club on Marconi Avenue, which officially began in 1975, now boasts five courts meeting international standards and has hosted seven National Championships since 1990. STL Bocce

The Big Club

A historic social space where Italian men played cards and bocce and drank beer. They purchased their building at the southwest corner of Shaw and Marconi in 1929. It eventually became a neighborhood community center before closing; the building was sold in 1994.

Youth Organizations

"Uncle" Joe Causino's Youth Clubs organized boys into groups with names like The Fawns, The Stags, The Royal Falcons, The Nightingales, The Wildcats, and The Ravens — complete with dues, clubhouses, and sponsored uniforms. These organizations kept kids off the streets and channeled competitive energy into athletics.

Historic Businesses Still Operating

What was it about The Hill that produced such concentrated excellence? The answer lies in the intersection of immigrant determination, Depression-era resilience, tight community bonds, and sports as a pathway to American acceptance.

Even though they grew up during the Depression, it was a neighborhood full of kids, they were always playing baseball or football or soccer, and they loved their life. Their fathers all worked in the mines, in the clay factories, in St. Louis. They were working poor. They never went without, but they never had more than they needed.

— Jon Pessah, biographer STLPR

Childhood on The Hill

Boys on The Hill painted bases on the pavement, nailed broken bats together, and "liberated" scarred baseballs from sandlot teams. When that one precious ball went down the sewer, Yogi — small and agile — was the one who climbed down to retrieve it. SABR

One of Garagiola's favorite stories: "We make the turn home from school, we look at the street and there were stripes. Green stripes, on the street, 10 yards apart. Yogi had taken his father's best paintbrush and measured off 10 yards and made it a football field."

Community Ethos

"Nobody was better than anyone else," Pessah observed, "and 'we're all in this together.'" Homes stayed in families for generations — properties passed within families or sold to approved buyers, rarely listed on the open market. One Hill house recently sold for the first time in 75 years.

Sports as Integration

Lombardians and Sicilians, historical rivals, united through athletics on The Hill. Historian Gary Mormino documented how "emphasis on sports contributed to community solidarity by reducing tension with the Sicilian minority and making juvenile delinquency unlikely."

When World War II began, The Hill community grew nervous. Italy was the enemy, and residents wanted to demonstrate their loyalty as Italian Americans. What followed was a staggering display of patriotism from a neighborhood of perhaps 3,000 people. ISDA

Given the neighborhood's size, this likely represented 80-90% of eligible men — an extraordinary participation rate for any American community.

The Fallen

Their names are inscribed on a bronze plaque at the back of St. Ambrose Church. A memorial column at Piazza Imo also lists the fallen — a permanent gathering place honoring the neighborhood's heritage and sacrifice.

Yogi Berra's Service

Enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 at age 18. Trained as a gunner's mate and assigned to the USS Bayfield. On June 6, 1944, Seaman Second Class Berra was at the helm of a 36-foot LCSS — "Landing Craft Suicide Squad" — launching rockets and machine gun fire 300 yards offshore at Utah Beach. USO

Well, being a young guy, I thought it was like the Fourth of July, to tell you the truth. I said, 'Boy, it looks pretty, all the planes coming over.' And I was looking out and my officer said, 'You better get your head down in here, if you want it on.'

— Yogi Berra, on D-Day NBC News

Joe Garagiola's Service

Drafted into the U.S. Army on April 24, 1944. Assigned to the 785th Tank Battalion, shipped out for the Philippines in 1945. The atomic bombs ended the war during the voyage. The battalion became military police near Manila, overseeing a POW camp holding 2,000 Japanese prisoners. Discharged as a sergeant in early 1946, in time to catch for the Cardinals in the World Series that fall. War History Online

Jack Buck grew up in Cleveland, not St. Louis, but his connection to The Hill involves one of the most remarkable coincidences in American sports history.

Buck was drafted into the Army in 1943 and assigned to K Company, 47th Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. On March 7, 1945, he crossed the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany — one of the last bridges standing across the Rhine. Eisenhower called its capture "worth its weight in gold." California Democrat

March 15, 1945

Buck was leading a patrol in the Remagen zone when German shells began falling. Shrapnel pierced his left forearm and leg, narrowly missing a hand grenade hanging from his belt. The only medic K Company had at that time ran to treat him.

That medic was Frank Borghi — from The Hill neighborhood of St. Louis.

Neither man knew the other's identity that day. Thirty years later, in 1975, Buck was emcee at a St. Louis banquet honoring Borghi:

We were seated at the head table, and we talked about the 9th Infantry Division. I asked him what regiment he was in, and he said the 47th. I said I was also. I asked him what company he was in, and he told me he was in K Company. So was I. I asked what he did in K Company, and he told me he was a medic. I asked how many medics there were in K Company after we crossed the Remagen Bridge. He told me he was the only one, because the other medic had been wounded. We determined that he was the medic who bandaged me the morning I was hit. That's unbelievable.

— Jack Buck, "That's a Winner!" Bangor Daily News

The Hill's athletic output extended far beyond baseball. When the United States defeated England 1-0 in the 1950 FIFA World Cup — a result so shocking that English newspapers initially assumed it was a typo — four of the five St. Louisans on the team came from The Hill. KSDK

I was hoping to hold them down to a few goals. Maybe four or five goals.

— Frank Borghi, on his expectations before the England match St. Louis Post-Dispatch

He recorded a shutout.

Essential Books

Archive Repositories

Existing Documentaries

On The Hill's Character

• "We were called 'hill guineas,' but that was alright with me because everybody knows that's where the best Italian cooks come from." — Yogi Berra
• "The whole Hill was built on what I wish this country was doing now: helping one another." — Joe Garagiola
• "What separates The Hill is that The Hill is not simply just a tourist attraction like these other Little Italies out there. The Hill still exists as a neighborhood." — Joseph Puleo, documentary director
• "They moved. We stayed. That's it." — Mike Vitale, Hill resident

On Growing Up

• "Boys on The Hill played ball in the street, painting bases on the pavement, nailing broken bats together, and liberating scarred baseballs from a sandlot team." — SABR biography
• "Nobody was better than anyone else, and 'we're all in this together.'" — Jon Pessah

On Lifelong Friendship

• "It's a tough day for me. We knew each other forever." — Joe Garagiola, after Yogi's death
• "Not only was I not the best catcher in the Major Leagues, I wasn't even the best catcher on my street!" — Joe Garagiola

Documentary Scene Recommendations