by Elliot Tiber. Before there was a Woodstock Concert, there was Elliot Tiber working to make a go of his parents’ upstate New York motel. The Jewish clientele who had frequented the Catskills had discovered Florida, and the upstate tourist business was dying. To save his family’s livelihood, Elliot put on plays and local festivals. In the process, he became the area’s issuer of event permits. He even used his own income from work as a Manhattan interior designer to support the family business.
In the summer of 1969, Elliot Tiber’s life changed in a way he never could have foreseen. Working in Greenwich Village, a mecca for gays in America, Elliot socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and a young photographer named Robert Mapplethorpe, and yet managed to keep his gay life a secret from his family. Then on Friday, June 28, Elliot walked into the Stonewall Inn–and witnessed the riot that would galvanize the American gay movement. And on July 15, when Elliot read that the Woodstock Concert promoters were unable to stage the show in Wallkill, he offered them a new venue. Elliot soon found himself swept up in a vortex that would change his life forever.
TAKING WOODSTOCK is the funny, touching, and true story of the man who enabled Woodstock to take place. It is also the personal story of one man who took stock of his life, his lifestyle, and his future. In short, it is like no history of Woodstock you have ever read–(book dust jacket)