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Dear
Town of Bethel Planning Board Members:--
This
letter is written as a formal commentary for the public hearing
scheduled on 9 March 2004 to discuss the Special Use Permit applied for
by the Gerry Foundation (GF) for its proposed Bethel Woods Performing
Arts Center. I am a
university-based historian with twenty-five years of experience in the
field of historic preservation. In
addition, my area of scholarly expertise includes the American
counterculture of the 1960s and ‘70s, a subject on which I have
published in peer-reviewed journals and books.
In the summer of 2001, I was hired as a consultant to Allee King
Rosen and Fleming (AKRF), the New York environmental planning firm
employed by the Gerry Foundation to prepare the Draft Environmental
Impact Statement (DEIS) for the property that included the former Max
Yasgur farm, and which the GF hopes to develop into a Performing Arts
Center District. My
responsibility was to author the section assessing the historical and
cultural significance of the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts
Festival. Not surprisingly,
I concluded that the site was of major significance on the local, state,
national, and even international levels.
With the owner’s consent, the site would certainly be eligible
for listing on both the New York State and the National Register of
Historic Places.
One
of the reasons for the site’s eligibility, besides its signal
importance in the history of American popular music, is that it remains
in much the same state as it was found when the Festival organizers
leased it from Max Yasgur in summer 1969.
This is all the more remarkable given the site’s location, a
mere two-hour drive from the heart of Manhattan and in a scenic area
that has for generations been a destination for vacationers. Miraculously, neither residential nor commercial sprawl has
adversely affected the site over the subsequent thirty-five years.
One
of the challenges facing the AKRF project staff was in designating the
boundaries of the Woodstock Festival site, a matter of no small concern
to the GF. A crowd
estimated at between 300,000 to 500,000 people attended at least a
portion of the three-day Festival and they spilled out of the 38-acre
natural amphitheater and adjoining plateau along Hurd Road and strolled
and camped over an area well outside what had been leased by the
promoters, much of which is currently owned by the GF.
For guidance, we turned to the publications prepared by the
National Park Service for nominating battlefields, since these sites
pose similar problems in determining the boundaries of military
conflicts that were often territorially extensive and temporally fluid.
In the end, the AKRF team focused on the so-called Festival Stage
Area, the 38-acre field and adjoining plateau which witnessed the music
that was at the heart of the Festival itself and attracted the greatest
attention by the throngs in attendance, not to mention the reporters,
photographers, and filmmakers who brought images of the Festival to the
awareness of the wider world. This,
it was decided, was the most significant part of the 1700 acres under
consideration for the proposed Performing Arts Center Development
District (PACDD).
When
the DEIS was later presented at a public hearing in March 2002, some
members of the public, along with the Woodstock Preservation Alliance,
expressed their dismay over the GF’s provisional Overall Development
Plan because it included a Core Building Complex of some 390,000 square
feet to be constructed on the plateau immediately above the Festival
State Area. These concerned
citizens pointed to a statement made by Alan Gerry at a press conference
held in mid-June 2001 to announce the commitment of state funding for
the PACDD. Mr. Gerry
was quoted in the New York Times as deflecting concerns that permanent
buildings might be erected in this very location.
“We think this is special land,” he said.
“Would you build a shopping center where Washington crossed the
Delaware?” The execution
of the GF’s original plans would, these vocal opponents maintained, do
just that – despoil what they regarded as “sacred ground” for
commercial gain. Between then and now the GF has seen fit to reduce the
footprint of the Core Building Complex (CBC) to approximately 35,000 to
38,000 square feet, less than 90% of its earlier size, and to relocate a
water tower that had been proposed for erection nearby.
While this is certainly a welcome change, the fact remains that
the CBC will still intrude into the viewshed from the Festival Stage
Area.
I urge the GF to reconsider its plan and remove the CBC from this
vicinity. It is a
staple of good preservation planning that no new permanent structures
should be erected within unaided eyesight of a historic site where
alternate locations may be found within a reasonable distance. Ideally, the site itself should preserve the perspective a visitor
would have had during the time period of the site’s primary historical
importance. Because
relatively few historic sites remain in a geographical context evocative
of the period of their primary importance, this is typically achieved by
mitigating to the degree practicable any intrusions that would
detract from such a perspective. The
Woodstock site is truly fortunate because it can avert these intrusions
ahead of time simply by constructing the CBC in a different location on
the property out of the Festival Stage Area viewshed.
GF
Executive Director Jonathan Drapkin, during his presentation before the
Planning Board last month to discuss the application for the Special Use
Permit, acknowledged that officials with the New York State Department
of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (NYSDPRHP) had
recommended against situating the larger CBC “retail element” on the
plateau where the downsized version is still planned.
He asserted that “the Interpretative Center element which they
[the NYSDPRHP] do recognize from battlefields and other things, has a
real purpose to be on the historic site in order to tell a story.” I would think it appropriate for this Board to request a
finding from the New York State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) as
to whether the GF’s revised plan satisfies the Department’s criteria
for such buildings in situ prior
to issuing a Special Use Permit. I
am inclined to think that the SHPO would continue to disagree with the
way Mr. Drapkin’s assertion has been interpreted in this revised plan,
because it does not conform to best practices for historic preservation.
In fact, recently the Gettysburg National Battlefield acquired at
great public expense an observation tower that had been constructed by
private interests for “enhancing” the visitors’ experience of that
site. The National Park Service demolished this intrusion so as to
return the battlefield’s viewshed to a state closer to what “the
brave men, living and dead, who struggled [there]” would have beheld
in July 1863. It would
behoove the Planning Board and the Gerry Foundation to apply the late
lesson from that sacred ground to the Woodstock site.
I
wish to conclude on a positive note.
I think the concept of the proposed Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center is
sound. I salute the Gerry
Foundation for investing in this project and believe them to be people
of good will. If done in
the most sensitive fashion, their project can preserve a site of major
historical importance while contributing to sorely needed economic
development for Sullivan County. I
call on them to tap into their considerable talent and ingenuity in
search of a way to accomplish these twin tasks which leaves the Festival
Stage Area and adjacent plateau area in as undeveloped a state as
feasible. At the same time,
I must also ask those others who honor and respect the site and who
regard it as sacred to cultivate a spirit of cooperation with the
present owners. It is my
cherished hope that people on both sides will be able to establish a
relationship based on trust and mutual caring for that which each shares
in common -- a love for what Woodstock continues to symbolize and a
determination to preserve it through wise use.
Cordially,
Michael William Doyle, Ph.D. |
