Everybody knows that the Petries lived in New Rochelle, NY in The Dick Van Dyke Show.
But where is the old Rochelle that the new one was named after?
(I can’t believe it’s taken me 40 years to wonder about this.)
It was founded in the 1680s by French Huguenot emigrants who had departed from the port of La Rochelle.
When I was growing up in the Bronx, we used to joke that the name was actually “New Roach Hell.”
That would be in France.. If you look up the [http://www.newrochelleny.com/17.asp]history of New Rochelle on their civic web page, they say that the area was named by French Hugenots (Protestants) who left France after Louis XIV revoked the protection of their religion. It’s not unlike the way that the Puritans named Plymouth Rock.
So, if I wanted to take a train there, about how far is New Rochelle from Broadway?
Times Square shuttle to Grand Central Terminal: Five minutes.
GCT to New Rochelle on a New Haven line express: about thirty minutes.
So, with typical waits, mayve about forty-five minutes.
Or have I been whooshed?
I don’t know!
I would note that La Rochelle had more significance to the huguenot than a mere port they could have departed from.
When the edict of Nantes was enacted by Henri IV, it Included provisions t the effect that the protestants would hold several towns as places of safety. One of them was the port of La Rochelle.
When Richelieu decided to abolish this priviledge (he wasn’t fond of fortified places not under the king’s control, he also has many fortresses owned by nobles dismantled), the inhabitants of La Rochelle refused to comply. They was eventually reduced after a very long and harsh siege, during which a significant part of the population starved to death.
Hence, the name of “La Rochelle” was highly famous and symbolic for the french huguenots (though of course, since there was a significant protestant presence in this town, it’s indeed possible that the settlers actually came from it and choose the name just for this reason, of course).
About three-quarters of an hour.
[Yes, JKellyMap, you were being whooshed by Eve, but you got back at her by coming up with the right answer!]
Wow, geographically accurate song lyrics! Not something you see much – 150 years ago, Stephen Foster changed “Suwannee” to “Swannee” to fit the meter of his song, and it’s generaly been downhill from there…
Fascinating information. Thanks for the links.
And train times haven’t changed since 1905! Holy commuting schedule, Batman!
And look where he ended up in the end…alone and friendless, dying in a cheap hotel.
Or so quotha Harlow, in Old Bowery Days (1930).
But they have great salt there…
A couple of quick thoughts before this thread falls off into oblivion:
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Eve’s hijack does show us how rural New Rochelle was considered by at least some Manhattanites a century ago. The song (and musical) Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway talks of it as being the haunt of rubens and jays (from which we get the terms “rube” and “jaywalking” respectively.
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La Rochelle in France (for which New Rochelle is named), although chiefly known for its Huguenot history, is also familiar to historical conspiracy-theory buffs as a stronghold of the Knights Templar. The Templar order came to an end when its followers were arrested and tortured – many killed – by forces of French King Philippe le bel (Philip the Fair) on Friday 13th October 1307 (some claim this is the origin of superstitions relating to Friday 13th :dubious: ).
The day before Templars throughout France were arrested, its documents and treasury in Paris were supposedly smuggled by cart to La Rochelle, where the Templar fleet lay at anchor. The fabulous Templar treasure (including, according to the real true-believers, the spoils of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem as well as the Holy Grail :dubious: ) was then supposedly taken by ship either to Scotland (where it may have ended up in Rosslyn Chapel) or to the New World, eventually being buried on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. Cecil’s take on Oak Island is here.
[I didn’t see the 2004 movie [National Treasure](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368891/), but previews showed a scene with a fleet of ships each bearing the red Templar cross on a white sail, so I assume it feeds on some of the Templar myths.]
Lest anyone take the above as anything but conspiracy-theory speculation, and since this is GQ, I’ll close with my favorite quote from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum:
I dunno, but the reverse trip requires… practice!
[I hit submit instead of preview, but one final thought:]
I wonder if the musical Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway is ever staged these days? The only reason I’ve ever heard of it (and so was able to pick up Eve’s reference) is that it is featured in an important couple of scenes in the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney as George M. Cohan in a role for which he won his only Oscar. In one scene (this is from memory, so I may have a couple of details wrong, but I’ll spoiler it even though it’s 63 years old!),
Cohan is trying to convince musical diva Fay Templeton of his songwriting talents in her Broadway dressing-room. She makes some throwaway line of having bought a place in New Rochelle, “45 minutes from here by train”, then leaves the room for a few minutes (perhaps to go on stage? I don’t remember). When she returns, Cagney-as-Cohan is sitting at the piano, and has just written the song “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway” while she was gone. She is duly impressed, and he now has one of Broadway’s great divas eating out of his hand.
I’m sure it didn’t happen like that IRL, but it’s a great scene in a most enjoyable movie.
Good thing Fay Templeton didn’t live in Newark!
I’m going to spend a Saturday sometime this summer in New Rochelle, at the library, as it was Irene Castle’s hometown.