• Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Members
  • Sign in
Westfair Communications
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
        • 2025 Women in Power
        • 2025 Millennial & Gen Z
      • 2024
        • 2024 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2024 Women Innovators
        • 2024 40 Under 40
        • 2024 Real Estate
        • 2024 Women In Power
      • 2023
        • 2023 Women In Power
        • Milli + Genz
        • Women Innovators
        • Forty Under 40
        • Doctors of Distinction
        • Real Estate
      • 2022
        • 2022 Millennial + GenZ Awards
        • 2022 C-Suite Awards
        • 2022 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2022 THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE
        • 2022 FORTY UNDER 40
      • 2021
        • 2021 FORTY UNDER 40 VIRTUAL EVENT
        • 2021 TOP WEALTH ADVISORS Virtual Event
        • 2021 Milli + GenZ Awards
        • 2021 C-SUITE
        • 2021 DOCTORS OF DISTINCTION
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBEACT NOW
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
        • 2025 Women in Power
        • 2025 Millennial & Gen Z
      • 2024
        • 2024 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2024 Women Innovators
        • 2024 40 Under 40
        • 2024 Real Estate
        • 2024 Women In Power
      • 2023
        • 2023 Women In Power
        • Milli + Genz
        • Women Innovators
        • Forty Under 40
        • Doctors of Distinction
        • Real Estate
      • 2022
        • 2022 Millennial + GenZ Awards
        • 2022 C-Suite Awards
        • 2022 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2022 THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE
        • 2022 FORTY UNDER 40
      • 2021
        • 2021 FORTY UNDER 40 VIRTUAL EVENT
        • 2021 TOP WEALTH ADVISORS Virtual Event
        • 2021 Milli + GenZ Awards
        • 2021 C-SUITE
        • 2021 DOCTORS OF DISTINCTION
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBEACT NOW
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Green

Catskills tourism reborn

Kathy Kahn by Kathy Kahn
August 14, 2009
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn
Order your reprint PDF today
Print Full Article

Whether you are one of those now-elite baby boomers who ran around in the rain at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 or were watching on TV and wondering what all the fuss was about, a trip to Bethel Woods for the Performing Arts in Sullivan County”™s town of Bethel can bring you back, not just to a historic era, but to one of the Northeast”™s finest concert venues, built at the site of the concert that defines for many what the ”™60s generation was all about. Men walked on the moon and nearly a half million people gathered at Bethel for the Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Both made history that summer.

Alan Gerry, former TV repairman now counted among the richest men in America, bought the famous site where the concert took place and nearly 1,800 acres surrounding it. Since spending more than $100 million to build Bethel Woods Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in July 2006, Gerry has spared no expense in bringing the best he could find in material, talent and workmanship to the project.

On Aug. 1, Bethel hosted a doo-wop revue, with groups including Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Charlie Thomas and the Drifters, the Five Satins, the Duprees and a special appearance by Gary “U.S.” Bonds.
A bigger crowd was expected to gather at the site Aug. 15 for the 40th anniversary concert, “Legends of Woodstock.” Bethel”™s lawn tickets were selling for $19.69, commemorating the year Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and a host of other top rock performers of the day braved mud and rain and played music as well as calling for an end to the Vietnam war.

 


While the center”™s museum is dedicated to the Woodstock era ”“ not just the music of the day, but the historic events occurring that decade ”“ Gerry does not foresee the venue as a monument to a bygone era. While the 1960s play a pivotal role in the Woodstock Museum, Gerry told the business journal last year he plans for it to continue to change and grow: “It would become stagnant if it didn”™t, just like any other museum would if it never kept adding to attract new visitors,” he said.

 

The music venue is not just for former Woodstock attendees, either. It has hosted New York Philharmonic, Brad Paisley, the tween sensation Jonas Brothers and other musicians of all genres who are there for the love of art and music and have an opportunity to play in a first-class, no-expense-spared outdoor venue that is surrounded by open fields and vistas of the Catskill Mountains.

Gerry sees Bethel Woods as eventually becoming a year-round venue and has built on that vision, one he no doubt hopes will be carried on by his children, who suggested he buy the site years ago, talking their father into overcoming his hesitation by noting the site”™s history and universal appeal. (According to local legend, Gerry was busy battling rabbit ears and keeping open his TV repair business Liberty while the three-day festival was wreaking havoc on the roads and on Max Yasgur”™s fields so that those who did not attend could follow the fuss in their living rooms.)

In addition to the regular museum”™s centerpiece, which focuses on the 1960s”™ events and the Woodstock concert itself, it is currently hosting an exhibit on John Lennon”™s and Yoko Ono”™s “bed-ins for peace” held in Amsterdam and Montreal, running through Sept. 7. (“All we are saying ”¦ is give peace a chance.”)

Gerry hopes Bethel Woods for the Performing Arts will be a lasting legacy to his native Sullivan County and the region and become a multi-generational place for the arts to survive and thrive.

This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.

Previous Post

Pedal to the meddle

Next Post

HeadRush Creative thinks big

Kathy Kahn

Kathy Kahn

Bio: Contributing writer

Related Posts

CIC welcomes extra state money for road repairs
Combined

CIC welcomes extra state money for road repairs

May 15, 2025
Apartment building proposed for Vineyard Avenue in Yonkers
Combined

Apartment building proposed for Vineyard Avenue in Yonkers

May 15, 2025
Owners of flood-prone Rye house sue developer for $1M
Construction

Owners of flood-prone Rye house sue developer for $1M

May 15, 2025
Next Post

HeadRush Creative thinks big

Quad fever hits

Asset adds mutual fund researcher

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to our newsletter

Lifestyle

  • Exclusives
  • Good Things Happening
  • Food & Restaurants
  • Travel
  • Health & Fitness
  • Home & Design

World News

CNN WIRE — Justice Sotomayor plans to remain on Supreme Court: VIDEO
World News

CNN WIRE — Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions

by CNN Wire
May 15, 2025
0

By John Fritze, Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Thursday seemed open to lifting...

U.S. and world news for May 15

U.S. and world news for May 15

May 15, 2025
CNN WIRE — Lawyers cleared AG Bondi memo on legality of Trump accepting 747 from Qatar

CNN WIRE — Lawyers cleared AG Bondi memo on legality of Trump accepting 747 from Qatar

May 14, 2025
U.S. and world news for May 14

U.S. and world news for May 14

May 14, 2025
Biden approves flood aid for Westchester

U.S. and world news for May 13

May 13, 2025
CNN WIRE — Harvard professors sue Trump

CNN WIRE — Behind the attacks on Harvard by the Trump Administration: VIDEO

May 12, 2025
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

CNN WIRE — Justice Sotomayor plans to remain on Supreme Court: VIDEO
World News

CNN WIRE — Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions

by CNN Wire
May 15, 2025
0

By John Fritze, Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Thursday seemed...

CIC welcomes extra state money for road repairs

CIC welcomes extra state money for road repairs

May 15, 2025
Apartment building proposed for Vineyard Avenue in Yonkers

Apartment building proposed for Vineyard Avenue in Yonkers

May 15, 2025
Owners of flood-prone Rye house sue developer for $1M

Owners of flood-prone Rye house sue developer for $1M

May 15, 2025
U.S. and world news for May 15

U.S. and world news for May 15

May 15, 2025
Logo Westfair Business Journal

Latest News

CNN WIRE — Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions

CIC welcomes extra state money for road repairs

Apartment building proposed for Vineyard Avenue in Yonkers

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Sign in

Trending Westchester

Subscribe to our newsletter

© 2024 Westfair Business Publications. All rights reserved. Westfair Communications (Westfair), a privately held publishing firm based in Mount Kisco, N.Y., publishes the Westchester County Business Journal in New York state and the Fairfield County Business Journal in Connecticut.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
      • 2024
      • 2023
      • 2022
      • 2021
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS

© 2024 Westfair Business Journal. All rights reserved.

Notifications

  • My Account
  • Sign In
  • Subscribe
  • Sign Out