This month marks 54 years since the “Aquarian Exposition” that made the word Woodstock shorthand for a much larger (counter) cultural moment. And while the Bethel site where the festival actually happened is deploying the brand new Catbird Festival in its renowned natural amphitheater, the actual town of Woodstock—the one that’s held that name since 1787—will celebrate its 19th annual Day of Gratitude, a concert and picnic for community volunteers and their families, on August 19. “We still get the occasional tourists who start by asking where the festival was,” says Woodstock town historian Richard Heppner. “When you lend your name to an entire generation, you tend to get visitors. We’re a small town with a difference, and that difference is embedded in the arts, and we’re proud of that heritage.”
Some newbies dive right in and find that the water’s fine. Kristin Kessler and her husband moved to Woodstock four years ago, and Kessler—a public health grants administrator for Kingston—is hard at work on one of the town’s thornier problems: its traffic bottleneck and spotty pedestrian infrastructure.
As one of 10 members of Woodstock’s Complete Streets Committee, she’s helping implement an AARP Livable Communities Walkability Grant that funds an in-depth assessment, performed by community members on a series of “walk audits,” of exactly how the problems can be addressed. “Everyone experiences the sidewalk differently,” Kessler says. “Now that I push a stroller, I’m aware of a lot of things that go unnoticed by the majority—but if you’re in a wheelchair, you’ll notice! Woodstock feels like it has enormous potential to become genuinely walkable.” Kessler is hoping the group can influence a coming state highway project; so far, she says, the plans revealed are lacking in Complete Streets sensibilities.
Plenty of people brave the iffy sidewalks and less-than-obvious crosswalks as it is. “Town has never been busier,” says Supervisor Bill McKenna. “It’s a damp, dark Monday and I was just out and about and the streets are all full of people. The downside is that not everybody loves all the commotion, but somewhere, hopefully, we’ll find the balance. Our music venues are all quite busy, and we’re actually dealing with too much noise, so we’ve got a committee—a mix of venue supporters and people who want more peace and quiet—working very hard to try to come up with a compromise, which makes me happy.”
Outdoor music ramped up during the pandemic, as a way for those venues to keep themselves afloat, and while everyone agrees that residents have a reasonable claim to peace and quiet, it’s a slightly ironic problem for a town that served as home turf for legends like Bob Dylan and The Band. “If you go back to the `70s and `80s, even the early `90s, there was a lot of music in town and we saw that kind of die out for a while,” says McKenna. “It’s nice to see it coming back, but folks living near town deserve a little break now and then.”
Over at the Bearsville Center, entrepreneur Lizzie Vann found a pandemic pivot that still works well. “We started the pandemic trying to do live music outside every weekend and we’ve learned a lot,” she says. “One thing we did was install 14 little bluestone patios with luxury seating and their own sound systems, so you can enjoy live music out-of-doors but it’s not blasting from the stage,” she says. “This summer, we’ve been doing mini-festivals, less frequent than during the pandemic, but we’ve all learned that we need to do these things in a way that’s respectful. With goodwill and technology and resources, we can do anything.”
Vann has owned the iconic compound since 2019; after a rocky rollout complicated by Covid, she’s working on synergies. One is a partnership with the Woodstock Film Festival, which will bring advanced Dolby Atmos Sound and DCP film projector systems to the theater along with a possible year-round screening series. Another involves the renovation of an existing tunnel connecting the Bearsville stage to Utopia Studios, the latter owned by multi-platinum engineer Pete Caigan, to facilitate the recording of live performances direct to the studio’s API AXS Legacy console.
“Nobody else has a boutique theater linked to a recording studio,” says Vann. “The National did an amazing recording here just before their new album launched—it’s got thousands of likes on YouTube. Albert’s original vision for the theater was to be a listening room for the music industry, so we’re adding these technological innovations to a room that’s acoustically perfect,” says Vann, referring to Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan’s longtime manager and prime mover behind the building of the Bearsville complex.
Vann’s equally iconic Cafe Espresso on Tinker Street will soon welcome Folkadelic Acoustic Instruments as its second-floor tenant. And she’s still deciding what to do with the Lasher property she purchased in spring 2023. The nearly five-acre parcel, formerly the site of a funeral home and adjacent open space in the center of town, was eyed by a hotel group, but public outcry cooled the developers’ ardor for the project. “We’re listening to the townspeople—we want to know what they think,” Vann says. “We’re going to have an open house and show people around, show them our ideas and ask for theirs. It’s an important property and we can’t get it wrong, so that project’s still in the pre-visioning phase.”
She says the Woodstock way of robust discussion is a refreshing culture shock. “I’m British, and in Britain a town council wouldn’t dream of talking to people—it just does what it does, and you very rarely get people going to meetings. So, to me, it’s a wonderfully transparent and accountable system that you have and we’re making full use of it.”
Music, Movies, and More
Music has taken center stage in that lively conversation since long before the town administrators decided that the Aquarian Exposition was a bridge too far. One of Woodstock’s oldest arts colonies, the Maverick, outraged some by holding Bohemian revels in the early 1900s. “They got a lot of pushback over what went on up there,” says Heppner. “They called it a ‘Bacchanalian affair.'” Nowadays, Maverick Concerts, one of the oldest chamber music festivals in the country, hosts free Family Saturdays during which young guests enjoy a free interactive hour of music, as well as shows with renowned players like Simone Dinnerstein and the Bill Charlap Trio.
The 1902 founding of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild may or may not have been less of a bacchanal, but its influence has been no less formative. “In a word, our scene is thriving,” says Nina Doyle, executive director of the Woodstock School of Art, which has offered art instruction in multiple disciplines since 1968. “Our galleries are full of local and regional art; our studios are filled with artists seeking instruction; we’ve got new instructors and new course offerings. Many of our classes and workshops have waiting lists.”
Online offerings initiated during the pandemic have been continued “by popular demand. About a third of our student base is online right now; we’ve got instructors logging on from Vermont and New York City, students from Mexico and California.”
All skill levels are welcome. “We’ll have a person who barely knows which end of a brush is which in class beside someone who’s exhibiting internationally,” she says. “Everyone is welcome—sometimes it’s the camaraderie that’s most important.” Institutional camaraderie isn’t hard to find; the school collaborates with local art partners like Maverick, Byrdcliffe, and the Arts Society of Kingston on cross-promotion and programming. “So for Upstate Arts Weekend we have a group of kids coming out from DRAW Kingston; they’ll come here for a multimedia workshop and then go over to Maverick to meet the musicians, have dinner, and see the show—a whole day of art and music in Woodstock. I think the pause we all had to take forced us all to be creative and think outside the box, and collaboration became survival.”
Another form of education is taking place this month at Paul McMahon’s Mothership Gallery. Woodstock Summer School celebrates the legacy of the artists’ enclave with a slate of workshops taught by local creative luminaries. On Wednesdays, axeman Jimmy Eppard offers “Care and Feeding of Your Electric Guitar.” Longtime Chronogram contributor Sparrow lectures on the finer points of writing with an eye patch in “One-Eyed Writing” on Tuesdays. Other presenters include tabla master Ray Spiegel, performance artists Linda Mary Montano, and astrologist Marian Tortorella.
The Tinker Street Cinema is now run by Andy “Animal” Braunstein, a local with childhood memories of relishing Roger Rabbit on its screen. “A ‘For Rent’ sign went up during the pandemic and I just had to,” he says. “It’s really exciting to be able to express my love for movies this way.” Coming attractions include Gremlins II, a Woodstock Horror Festival in October with classics in their original 16 and 35mm film formats, a Mad Max live score event, and a celebration of legendary Betty Boop animator Lillian Friedman Astor.
A screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory will introduce Tinker Street’s collaboration with Fruition Chocolate on a dedicated line of chocolate-dipped caramel corn. Other plans include video game nights featuring Super Mario Kart and “a lot of live concert movies, from Otis Redding to Slayer. I like to show exciting stuff, nothing so socially conscious that it’s hitting you over the head,” says Braunstein. For times and dates of these events and too many more to list, follow Tinker Street Cinema on FB or Instagram; Braunstein’s improvisational management style often finds him “deciding what movie is playing while I’m changing the marquee,” he says. “If the door’s open, we’re in there watching movies, c’mon in.”
For those who like live theatrical excitement, the Bird-on-a-Cliff Theatre Company presents its 28th season production, “As You Like It,” through September 3 in the open air at the Comeau Property.
Optimistic Optics
Like most places in the region, Woodstock has been grappling with housing affordability since long before the pandemic-sparked real estate boom. The 53-unit Woodstock Commons, opened by RUPCO in 2013, filled up immediately. The need has only intensified in the past decade, and McKenna says the town is working hard toward solutions. “We received almost $600,000 from the American Rescue Plan, and almost 70 percent of that is committed to housing projects, working with the Woodstock Housing Alliance to give short-term loans to property owners to create accessory dwelling units, supporting the HomeShare program, and—this is a little more ambitious—we’re hoping to come up with a town property that will attract an agency like [local advocacy groups] RUPCO or Family of Woodstock to develop it, and we’ll dedicate $199,000 toward engineering and site plan work on that. We have a lot of great ideas, and a lot of great people working on them.”
Janice LaMotta is executive director of HomeShare Woodstock, working with Family of Woodstock to match those with space to spare and others in need of an affordable roof. “We have a very thorough vetting process to get a sense of the needs and lifestyles on both sides of the equation. It’s great for, say, seniors who may want some help or company and people who are trying to get back on their feet. Most of our work-exchange-rents are well below market value.” In its second year of accepting applications, the program has made three successful matches already.
LaMotta is hoping that outreach will draw more homeowners to offer affordable spaces. “We live in such a small town, and we’re dependent on our volunteers and workforce being able to live within a reasonable distance—this can’t be the whole solution, but it’s a part.”
“I’m very optimistic about the projects that we have coming down the pike,” says McKenna. “When I first got on the board, we had a number of properties that needed upgrades; we’ve done the highway garage, the police station, and the community center, and now we’re working on our offices at the Comeau Property. My hope is that we can turn our attention to the youth center next—I’ve put together a task force, and we’ll see what the public wants. I’m optimistic that within the next couple of years, we’ll have a new facility for our kids.”
McKenna says that for all the many squabbles, collaboration and volunteerism are the true Woodstock way. “I’ve often said I could sit down with my worst political enemy and chat, and there’d be parts of their thinking that could improve my ideas and vice versa. We all need to be working together, whether you’re talking Woodstock or Washington or the UN. We have so much to solve together.”
Feeling crowded isn’t new, he says. “If you look at the old ads from the 1890s, people were welcoming guests from the city to come and stay even back then—this place has always had powerful magnetism. I saw an old hippie friend the other day who was talking about all the newcomers. I said, ‘You know, when you showed up, there was a similar conversation.’ He said ‘Nah, they loved me. Nah. They tolerated you.”
Newcomers who want to achieve beloved status are well advised to go hands-on and help out around the fire department or one of the many other organizations that depend on volunteer aid. “When you get new people arriving, it takes time to get them up to speed and understand how much we rely on our community involvement. We’re just not a facade on Tinker Street,” says Heppner. “That’s why we have a day of thanks for our volunteers, to remind them and everyone else how important they are.”
This article appears in August 2023.
