Alan Gerry’s name may not carry the same recognition as the musicians who have performed on his land, but his impact on Upstate New York’s cultural landscape is arguably unmatched. The cable television pioneer from Liberty, New York, purchased the original Woodstock festival site in Sullivan County and transformed it into Bethel Woods Center for the Arts — preserving one of music history’s most sacred grounds while revitalizing a region that had been in economic decline for decades.
From Liberty to Cable Empire
The son of Russian immigrants, Gerry grew up in Liberty, Sullivan County, and built Cablevision Industries from a small storefront into one of the largest cable television companies in the country. When he sold the company to Time Warner for approximately $2.7 billion in the late 1990s, he could have retired anywhere. Instead, he turned his attention — and his fortune — back to Sullivan County, where the collapse of the Borscht Belt tourism industry had left communities struggling.
Building Bethel Woods
Through the Gerry Foundation, he acquired the 37-acre field where the 1969 Woodstock festival took place, along with surrounding acreage totaling roughly 800 to 1,000 acres. After testing the concept with a “Day in the Garden” festival in 1998 and a 30th anniversary Woodstock event in 1999, Gerry committed to building a world-class performing arts center on the site. The $150 million Bethel Woods Center for the Arts opened on July 1, 2006, with a performance by the New York Philharmonic, with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young among the inaugural season headliners.
The Venue and Its Significance
Today, Bethel Woods features a 16,000-seat pavilion, a 1,000-seat indoor terrace, a museum dedicated to the 1960s and the Woodstock legacy, an educational conservatory, and a campground. Artists from Bob Dylan to Elton John have performed on the grounds where half a million people gathered in August 1969. The venue became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2012. More than a concert venue, Bethel Woods is a preservation project, an economic engine, and a living monument to the idea that music can transform a place. Gerry made it possible because he believed Sullivan County deserved better — and then he built the proof.