The town that gave a generation its soundtrack — Catskill arts colony turned rock-and-roll mythology
Woodstock is a small town in New York's Catskill Mountains that became the symbolic center of 1960s counterculture — even though the 1969 festival that bears its name was held 70 miles away. Bob Dylan lived and recorded here in the 1960s, the Band built their Big Pink house nearby, and Van Morrison recorded here. Today the town retains a genuinely bohemian character: independent galleries, farm-to-table restaurants, record stores, and a remarkable density of working artists and musicians.
The Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts Colony was founded in Woodstock in 1902, establishing the town as an artists' retreat. Bob Dylan moved to the area in 1964; the Band's Basement Tapes were recorded at Big Pink in West Saugerties in 1967. The 1969 Woodstock festival — held in Bethel, not Woodstock — cemented the town's mythological status.