From Woodstock to Grossinger's
Monument of the Week
Over four hot and steamy days in August, 1969, around 400,000 people showed up on a grassy slope at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, NY, for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Down the road in Liberty, NY, the Grossinger family played host to millions at the Borscht Belt resort that bore their name, from their opening in 1919 until a decade after Jennie Grossinger's passing in 1972.
Both venues gave rise to entire industries of imitators attempting to cash in on what were fundamentally unique and non-replicable situations. Both venues today are empty fields, honored in the case of Woodstock, and abandoned in the case of Grossinger's.
But what the photos show--and the real reason neither was ever successfully copied--is that they were never about the venue, but about the human beings who occupied the spaces and enriched the lives of those who ventured there. We tourists should think about this when salivating over endless line-ups of mansions and castles, without wondering about all the tragedies and comedies that occurred within.
Ben was at Woodstock and remembers it as a massive, happy accident--not least because his own participation was entirely by chance (he wasn't even supposed to be in the USA that summer, much less in upstate New York). Since then, his experience has served as the ultimate, iron-clad conversation starter in any American grouping of any age.
So there is that.
Read at Wikipedia about:
Watch the trailer for the movie Woodstock.
I bet your having been at Woodstock IS a conversation starter! I will definitely put that on my list of topics to discuss with you if our paths cross...
It's true, and it's the worst kind of snobbery, but all legendary hippie rock festivals are divided into either Woodstock, or every other festival that gets compared to Woodstock. What makes my attendance probably close to unique is that I had no idea where we were going. I'd been in-country from UK for less than three weeks, and had to visit Syracuse for a last-minute college application interview, when my cousin in the car with me said we might as well go to this rock concert he'd heard about. So the two of us arrived in college-visiting clothes, including ties and jackets. I didn't do drugs or mindless sex and had only heard of maybe three British bands in the line-up. I'd never even eaten a taco and maybe less than a dozen hamburgers. A total fish out of water--although after four days of rain, that was a relative term. It was a crazy lot of fun and adventure, but I'm sure others would have fit right in without being quite so startled by the whole American experience. Thanks for reading!!!