Post | 07/15/2008 11:00 am

Woodstock Museum’s Summer '08 Opening in Bethel Woods

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

You know it’s been a long and winding road when the pivotal cultural event of a generation earns its own museum.

This summer, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts launched a museum that celebrates the story of the ’60s and the historic three-day Woodstock Festival. Located on the actual site of the watershed 1969 music and cultural event, the 6,728-square-foot stone, wood and glass museum is situated on 2,000 rolling acres of open space and is meant to both preserve the festival’s physical footprint and cement its place in our cultural history.

Click here for photos from the new Woodstock Museum in Bethel Woods.

In three galleries, the museum strives to put the Woodstock Festival into context and position it within a decade that saw radical change in the greater culture. The galleries hold artifacts both original and recreated from the era (including a psychedelic school bus), 20 films, five interactive productions, murals and hundreds of photographs. Oral histories on the era from voices as diverse as Wavy Gravy and Edwin Meese are part of the museum, which endeavors to be both accessible and academic.

The Museum is part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, which is an outdoor performing arts center with 15,000 seats. Throughout the summer and fall, the center is host to performances as diverse as the New York Philharmonic to Lynyrd Skynyrd. On July 19th, Tony Bennett will appear in concert, and on August 13th, Maroon 5 and Counting Crows will appear.

Read more about: Bethel Woods, Culture, History, Photography, Woodstock

42 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

doll lady
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh those were the good ole days…….1969. I had just graduated from high school, landed a job and wanted to go to Woodstock. But at that age, I had no money to travel to the Catskill Mountains. I think I was making a whopping $280 per month. This museum is a wonderful way of celebrating the wonderful free feeling the babyboomers had in their youth, even though the original Woodstock was overshadowed with rapes, danger, chaos, etc. It was a dream of many to attend. Just because.
By doll lady on 07/15/2008 10:33 am
Bella Mia
Does anyone know if federal tax monies were used to build this? Originally there were “earmarks” to do so, but there was such an outcry by abused taxpayers, and I wondered how that was resolved.
By Bella Mia on 07/15/2008 10:36 am
Frank Peterson
Considering the waste of taxpayers money in every federal pork-barrel program coming out of congress what’s a few more million? All I have to do is look at the wasted money the Pentagon abuses to not feel one bit of remorse about a museum.
By Frank Peterson on 07/15/2008 11:37 am
James Gemmell
Exactly, Franko. I have a DVD documentary set on the original Woodstock, a great collector’s item. What a great moment in time, capturing a young generation on video/audio that had the courage to protest a senseless war by rallying around the harmony of music. Music was everything back in the day, but today it takes a back burner to other interests amongst the youth. And there is so much hate-filled music today, no wonder they’ve turned away from it. But there are some wonderful exceptions, thankfully. Long live rock ‘n’ roll!!!
By James Gemmell on 07/15/2008 12:35 pm
Frank Peterson
James, exactly—I wouldn’t be without my Rock music—so many memories of Winterland and the Fillmore and the Eagles auditorium in Seattlle—man I saw so many great bands—I’ve lost count of them :-)
By Frank Peterson on 07/15/2008 12:39 pm
James Gemmell
I really like(d) the Jefferson Airplane. They have some great live stuff. They actually pre-dated the Beatles in terms of doing a live, rooftop concert. Check out this video from atop a New York City high rise they did circa 1967, but only if you don’t mind some profanities. The accoustics are poor, as you’d expect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urjmxO66mS8 . The cops broke it up, as you’ll see. Grace Slick was gorgeous, almost as pretty as Marlo Thomas was (is) from that era. One memorable rock concert was California Jam 1 at Ontario Motor Speedway, Califoria, April 1974. Black Sabbath, Earth,Wind&Fire, America, Emerson,Lake&Palmer, et al. were there, with Deep Purple headlining. It was televised live by ABC-TV that night. Purple had a deal where they wouldn’t take stage until sundown because they wanted to display their light show. The concert pace was ahead of schedule, and Purple were called to take stage. An ABC exec got into lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s face, demanding he take stage or be blackballed out of the industry. Blackmore is a madman as you know, and he just continued to strum his guitar, ignoring the exec. Eventually, Purple took stage, and an ABC cameraman kept getting in Ritchie’s face, contrary to a contract stipulation. So, Ritchie slammed the guitar neck repeatedly into the camera lens, had a roadie pour some petro on the amps and set it alight. Oops. Too much petro, and the stage went up in flames. Police cars chased after Blackmore behind the stage. He got into a helicopter and the pilot took off as the cars pulled up. A huge lawsuit ensued.
By James Gemmell on 07/15/2008 1:30 pm
Frank Peterson
Gracie—great singer—and truly beautiful and I listen to her as often as I can.
By Frank Peterson on 07/15/2008 1:50 pm
Dorothy S
The music. It was all about the wonderful expression through amazing music. To have another place for music is excellent. Our world needs this now just as it needed it back in 1969.
By Dorothy S on 07/15/2008 10:36 am
Dorothy S
My brother left with a car load of friends and with me still getting to the driveway. Looking back, he was being a protectvie bug brother, although at the time, I was annoyed. His life remained on the track of pot,LSD, wood working,roaming free, My life brought lovely children, husband, teaching and an enduring enjoyment of the music.
By Dorothy S on 07/15/2008 10:40 am
DeBúrca obj
I was too young to go but thought… when I’m older I’m going to do all that cool stuff! Then when I was 18, it was 1975 and all the “cool stuff” disappeared, boys cut their hair, no more hippies, very little idealism, lots of apathy… and we got disco…
By DeBúrca obj on 07/15/2008 10:41 am
Lorraine Bates
I was born to native San Franciso parents during the Summer of Love. Hippies they sure weren’t. DeBurca, be glad you weren’t 18 during the androgynous, “fear the bomb”, “virgin” Madonna, Valley Girl ’80s. Live Aid was as close as we came to Woodstock.
By Lorraine Bates on 07/15/2008 12:20 pm
DeBúrca obj
I thought the 80s decade was depressing. I was a young mother at the time and would see teenagers walking around dressed as preppy’s or wearing big hair, sprayed the way my mother used to do it. The were all planning on getting their MBAs because college was only about the money… I remember thinking idealism is gone and that it’s weird that all these teenagers seem to identify so much with their parents, that it wasn’t normal. Now I see those 80s teens grown with children and they’re still the same self absorbed people they were back then. Very little concern for politics or world events, very focussed on pop culture, STILL. They’re the ones driving the big SUVs and double parking to pick their kids up from ballet class and if you sit next to them at a coffee shop their conversation very often contains little reference to current events but lots of focus on home improvements, vacations and what happened on Dancing With The Stars.
By DeBúrca obj on 07/15/2008 1:23 pm
Linda Clark
DeBúrca JC ………… in looking back to the eighties, you got it right. Your description of those folks today reminds me of the three monkey’s minus one: see no evil, hear no evil; in other words……….blind as a bat and under water without a snorkle.
By Linda Clark on 07/15/2008 1:42 pm
Lorraine Bates
Gee, thanks guys. :-) IMHO, you’re talking about the tail end of the baby boomers, not us, the “13th generation”. But seriously, growing up in the 80’s was wierd. I was 18 in 1985 and what I remember the most is we were the first generation since the 50’s that were reminded, daily, of our imminent death from the USSR. It was all Star Wars (meaning defense systems, not movies), nuclear silos, Sting singing “I Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too.” Then came herpes, and some of us were stuck with permanent, incurable reminders of stupid mistakes of our 20’s. Then Rock Hudson died of AIDS, Randy Shilts wrote, “And The Band Played On…” and now some of us were facing death from those stupid mistakes. Free love no more. The stock market crashed, and we couldn’t afford to stay in college, buy our first homes, or get a decent job, because there weren’t any. Even Time Magazine said of us, “By and large, the 18-to-29 group scornfully rejects the habits and values of the baby boomers, viewing that group as self-centered, fickle and impractical. While the baby boomers had a placid childhood in the 1950s, which helped inspire them to start their revolution, today’s twenty-something generation grew up in a time of drugs, divorce and economic strain…They feel influenced and changed by the social problems they see as their inheritance: racial strife, homelessness, AIDS, fractured families and federal deficits.” —Lorraine, in her own little pity party….
By Lorraine Bates on 07/15/2008 3:34 pm
James Gemmell
Yeah, JC, one of my favorite memories was Disco Demolition Night at the old Comiskey Park. I wasn’t hip about the riot/violence, but just the fact that disco was finally being put in its place on that night in 1979. The Detroit Tigers were scheduled to play the White Sox a double-header. The organizers of the event inexplicably decided to blow up 10,000 or so records between games. It turned into utter chaos, with fans streaming onto the field, utter bedlam. The Sox had to forfeit the second game to the Tigers. I kept my hair long until 1982, at least. The demise of idealism was one of the biggest blows in this country’s history. The rednecks, even to this day, make fun of the psychedelic colors and look of the hippies, thinking that they’re better and wiser with the passage of time. But I believe that idealism - even though impractical and immature at times - helps people strive for a better way of living life and getting alone. The notion of peace and love aren’t silly at all. The prospect of war…now that’s what is silly.
By James Gemmell on 07/15/2008 1:14 pm
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