My Capstone research took me to a little town called Jeffersonville in mid-state New York. It's a quaint little town with the usual high street assortment of town businesses - the post office, a couple of restaurants, a couple of furniture shops, a bookstore, and even a chocolate shop, where everyone apparently hangs out. There is also a health foods store and two coffee shops which boast "Free Trade" coffee on their signage inviting you to come inside. So it's a pretty hip little town. Anyway, the pastor that I had to interview for my paper told me that Jeffersonville was only nine miles away from the site of the Woodstock concert in 1969. I couldn't be that close to the essence of the rock Gods and not check it out!
The town that holds the Yasgur's farm, where the original event took place, is called Bethel Woods, and there is now a big arts and concert venue nearby. (Woodstock, NY is actually on the other side of the Catskills.) Clearly I had to take a picture, and I tried not to look too ridiculous snapping photos (on a really busy road) of what looks like a totally common farm in a remote part of the state. You can't make it out so well from this picture, but the building actually does say "Yasgur" on it, which is what tipped me off. A professional journalist, I am.
