BETHEL WOODS – Routes 17 and I-84 through Orange and Sullivan counties are dotted with portable traffic signs warning of possible delays due to heavy traffic because of the expected attendance at the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival at Bethel. That has not occurred. So far, traffic has been light to moderate on a typical Friday.
Attendance at the Bethel Woods site during the day was not spectacular, but it was a packed house on Friday night as former Beatle Ringo Starr and his All Star Band performed.
Tonight (Saturday) Santana will be performing and on Sunday evening, John Fogerty will be on the big stage.
Sullivan County native Steve Gold, who attended the original festival as a 15-year-old, and is owner of Peace of Stage, acquired the wooded boards that made up the stage at Woodstock 1969.
One of the planks is at the Catskill Distilling Company a mile up the road from Bethel Woods.
“We’re having people sign a petition on one of the original stage planks for background checks for gun control and red flag laws and we are going to be taking it down to [Senator] Mitch McConnell in a couple of weeks and present it,” he said.
Gold wants the Senate majority leader to know how people feel in light of the three recent violent attacks – in El Paso, Dayton and Philadelphia. He expects to collect several hundred signatures by the end of this weekend.
Six of the original stage boards are on display having been loaned to Bethel Woods for the anniversary.
