The 1969 Woodstock Festival made musical history. Now, the state wants to preserve the property on which it was held with official state and national historic status.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday included the 600-acre site in Bethel, Sullivan County, in a list of 26 properties nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.
“The three-day music and art festival, which took place on 600 acres of rolling farmland in rural Sullivan County in August 1969, is nationally significant in social history as the site of one of the most important cultural and social events of the second half of the 20th century,” said an announcement from the governor’s office.
Beyond the status of making the list, being part of the National Register of Historic Places allows access to certain tax credits and state and federal grants. The National Park Service has 45 days to determine whether to include the property on the Register.
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Seven other Hudson Valley properties were also among the 26 nominations. According to the governor’s website, they are:
DuBois Farmhouse, Poughkeepsie – Built circa 1770 and extensively modified in 1956, with electricity and a top-of-the-line kitchen, it became a model home for President Eisenhower’s “Operation Home Improvement,” a new initiative emphasizing the rehabilitation of existing housing stock rather than new construction.
Soldiers’ Memorial Fountain and Park, Poughkeepsie – The park was created in 1870 by community leaders who banded together to purchase land for a park and memorial to local Civil War veterans and war dead.
Onderdonck-Tallman-Budke and Vanderbilt-Budke-Traphagen Houses, Clarkstown – The Onderdonck House is considered one of Rockland County’s oldest sandstone dwellings, and appears to have largely arrived at its present footprint and gambrel-roofed form in the early 1790s while the earliest section of The Traphagen House dates to about 1820.
Bleecker Stadium and Swinburne Park, Albany – The recreational center developed over the course of more than a century — from the creation of an ornamental flower garden in the 1860s to the completion of the Swinburne Park skating rink in 1969, including the New Deal-era conversion of a reservoir into Bleecker Stadium.
Normanskill Farm, Albany – The farm that has been owned by a succession of leading Albany citizens consists of four main buildings—the Main House (built circa 1806;), the Mill Tenement house (built circa 1830 as housing for laborers); the Hay Barn (built circa 1875); and the Main Barn (built circa 1912 as a state-of-the-art dairy barn).
Lincoln Park, Albany – The city of Albany authorized creation of a park in 1890 to replace an unsanitary neighborhood known as Martinville; the park today largely reflects a circulation and landscaping plan developed in 1913 by landscape architect Charles Downing Lay, and includes an early 1930s Colonial Revival-style bathhouse.
John S. Tilley Ladders Company building, Watervliet – The 1916 factory building was home to the nation’s oldest ladder manufacturer, which operated in Watervliet from 1855 until it ceased operations in 2004.
In other, slightly related, news, 961 acres have been preserved in the Village of Tuxedo and Town of Tuxedo, adjacent to Sterling Forest. The land was donated by developer Related Companies, who is working on the proposed $900 million Tuxedo Farms. The Orange County Land Trust will hold the conservation easement on the land.
