The Rondout Resort store and office.
The Catskills are a small mountain range northwest of New York City. In the mid-1900s, it was an especially popular resort destination for middle- and working-class Jewish families from NYC, so much so that it was referred to as the Borscht Belt or the Jewish Alps. The 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing” takes place in one of these family resorts.
We stopped for just one night in the Catskills, in an RV park that looked like it was probably bustling in the Borscht Belt heyday. It was pretty quiet in September, though, and a little worn around the edges.
Classic t-shirt.
The Catskills are also where Woodstock took place in August 1969. I was only 14 then, living with my grandmother in Springfield, Missouri and pretty naïve. By the time the movie came out the next summer, I already considered myself a hippy and the movie convinced me I was born five years too late.
Kate and I were excited to find ourselves driving right through the small town of Woodstock, and although parking is tricky there, we were able to find a place for Bessie so we could walk through the town and have lunch.
The festival of Woodstock didn’t actually take place in Woodstock, a local told me. Festival planners had originally chosen land near the town for the event, but when it became obvious just how many people might show up, the town council shut that down fast. So the festival was moved to Max Yaeger’s dairy farm, about 50 miles south, where 40,000 people made cultural history and turned Max’s cow pastures into 500 acres of mud.
Downtown Woodstock.
The town of Woodstock still capitalizes on the festival’s notoriety, though. And I think I glimpsed a few residents who might have come for the festival and never left. Tie-dye abounds, and shops sell t-shirts with the original Woodstock logos, as well as modern renditions. Coming from Eugene (where hippies are still alive and well), I felt right at home.