
Photo #4: Monument at West Shore Road and Hurd Road, looking to Woodstock site.
Before the Bethel Woods Museum opened, a concert was held at the Woodstock site in mid-August 1998. Alan Gerry, who had purchased about 2000 acres of land around the Woodstock site, and eventually started the museum and the Bethel Woods Music series, sponsored the three-day concert as a pilot program for his eventual summer series. Now the Bethel Words Center for the Arts and the Museum, opened in 2008, are known throughout the Catskills community. Then it was just a dream.
My parents took a ride up to Hurd Road from our home on West Shore Road to check it out. They eventually became season ticket subscribers to the music series and visitors to the museum.
When we cleaned out their home, I bundled up a bunch of photos and papers to take home, and I slowly have been going through them. Today’s find was 20 photos from the 1998 concert site, before Bethel Woods was built. I share a three of those photos here.
The monument area is very different now, with shrubs and landscaping. Just over the hill and ridge is the site of the museum and the music festival. The actual site of Woodstock has not been used for a concert for years. It is kept as an historic site.
But it still rains in August.
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