20 STORIES FOR 20 YEARS
Robyn Gerry - Part 1
Robyn Gerry, who sits on the Board of Trustees of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, The Museum at Bethel Woods, and the Gerry Foundation, shares the ultimate Bethel Woods story.
“At age 11 in mid-August 1969, I was aware that something was happening. I was living in Liberty in an apartment with my mom on Buckley Street. Buckley is right off of Main Street, and I could see the cars. I knew something was going on, so I put on my bell bottoms and a colorful shirt, and I sat on the front stoop next to the sidewalk, and I watched all this traffic go by. I remember at least one car stopping and asking me for directions, and I said, ‘I don't know, everyone else went that way.’
My other Woodstock memory is from Friday night [August 15th]. We would always have dinner Friday nights at my grandparents' house in Ferndale, and I remember all of us watching TV that night together because they were covering the news of Woodstock. And an uncle or somebody saying, ‘Well, Annelise [my sister] is out there somewhere...we hope she's okay.’ And that's really all I've got from ’69.
Years passed, bringing unofficial Woodstock anniversary events, and my husband was a musician, singer/songwriter, so we would gravitate towards anything having to do with music. In 1989 he went to the reunion with the eclipse [Lunar Woodstock]. I did not join him because I was pregnant with triplets and not quite feeling so well. So he came back and he had these wonderful stories, how magical it was, how all these people showed up. It felt so much like Woodstock, the sense of community and peace and the great music. And so we went in ’94, and we camped up the road at Woodstock on the Lake Campground because we weren't sure it was okay to camp on the field. That was the year that [promoter] Sid Bernstein wanted to put on a 25th reunion of sorts but that just fell apart.
In August ’95 we went back and we said, ‘We're camping on the field.’ We had an RV and we just rolled up onto the field and enjoyed the festivities. I think that's when I saw potential for the county, because I saw that weekend the stress on the county, how the town of Bethel was scrambling to bring in water, they were scrambling in to bring porta-potties. It shouldn't be stress on them to be bringing in all these services. I thought that perhaps if somebody could truly make something happen there that would be beneficial to the county, that people could still come and enjoy it.
The next year, my father Alan Gerry signed an agreement to merge Cablevision Industries with Time Warner. Not long after, he started the Gerry Foundation with the purpose of improving the quality of life for the people of Sullivan County, the county that was so good to him. He wanted to give back. I thought that was the perfect opportunity to say, ‘Hey, I've got an idea. I think that June Gelish would be willing to sell the original 37 acre field to you.’
It took probably a year and a half for me to convince him that this was the right thing to do. He asked me for several business plans, which was expected. I worked for my dad in the cable industry for decades, so I knew the protocol to get things done. I must have sparked something he believed in, and he finally said, ‘Yes, let's do this.’
To be continued…October 2