History
On December 25, 1848 the first train steamed through New Rochelle, part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad built in the early 1840s. At the time, New Rochelle was the final railroad station before entering New York City. A fatal head-on collision in New Rochelle in 1851 led to the construction of a second track in 1853. By 1869, six trains traveled between the two cities daily. In 1884, the railroad drew up plans for its present brick structure which was constructed in 1887 to replace the original Gothic Revival structure that had stood just northeast of what is now North Avenue.
The 1½ story station is built of brick and has a gabled roof punctuated by a series of hipped dormers. A centered hexagonal dormer projects away from the building to allow views along the tracks. Its eaves overhang beyond the exterior walls of the building, and is supported by unadorned wood brackets. The interior of the 3,670 square feet (341 m2) still retains many original features. By the start of the 20th century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad had five tracks through New Rochelle. The population had surged to 15,000 inhabitants. A roundhouse for steam engines, tracks for passenger cars and a large freightyard near Cedar Street was built.
Over the years, New Rochelle became one of the busiest stations on the line. As it developed into a commuter town, local travel increased even more. The city obtained national fame in 1906 when George M. Cohan wrote the song entitled "Forty-five Minutes from Broadway". The average 36-minute train ride and 10-minute walk from Grand Central to Broadway places the station about 45 minutes away.
As with all New Haven Line stations in Westchester County, the station became a Penn Central station upon acquisition by Penn Central in 1969, and eventually became part of the MTA's Metro-North Railroad. On October 25, 1987, New Rochelle became eastern Westchester County's Amtrak station, replacing Rye Station which served as the county's eastern Amtrak station since 1972. The station was fully renovated in 1990, and careful attention was placed on restoring it to its original historic accuracy. The waiting room is reflective of New Haven line stations, with plaster walls, a wood ceiling and wood wainscot sheathing. The original floor was probably wood, but was replaced sometime in the 1930s with Terrazzo. There are wood moldings around the doors, and crown moldings enhance the perimeter at the ceiling line.
Read more about this topic: New Rochelle (Metro-North Station)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
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Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)