Woodstock concert site's iconic 'message tree' reluctantly cut down

At the Woodstock festival in 1969, a crowd of people stopped in front of the towering red maple tree, a little way from the main stage. Many scribbled messages on scraps of paper or cardboard and taped them to the trunk of the old tree.

“SUSAN, MEET HERE SATURDAY 11AM, 3PM, or 7PM,” read one note left on what would later become the message tree. In another, Candi Cohen was to meet the girls at the hotel. Dan wrote on a paper plate to Cindy (with the black hair and her sister) that he was sorry he was “too bothered” to ask for her address, but he left his number.

Fifty-five years after Woodstock, the message tree was cut down under rainy skies Wednesday due to health and safety concerns.

The owners of the famed concert venue were reluctant to lose a living symbol of community forged on a Bethel, New York, farm from August 15 to 18, 1969. But operators of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts feared the more than 100-year-old tree, which sits in a publicly accessible area, was in danger of falling. Now they have plans to honor its legacy.

“It’s like watching a loved one die,” said Neal Hitch, senior curator at the Museum At Bethel Woods.

In an era before cell phones, the 60-foot tree near the information booth helped connect people in the festival’s sea of humanity. Hitch noted that it has since become a tangible link to the historic event that drew more than 400,000 people to Max Yasgur’s dairy farm, some 80 miles northwest of New York City, during that rainy, chaotic weekend.

The generation-defining legend of Woodstock comes not only from art greats like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, but also from the sheer number of smug people who huddled together on the muddy hill in front of the stage.

“That tree is literally in almost every photo taken on stage. From the top of the hill, the tree is in the bottom corner. It’s like it’s something that has stood the test of time,” Hitch said. “Seeing that loss is both nostalgic and melancholic.”

Hitch said Tuesday that there were still nails and pins on the trunk where items had been attached to the tree over time. The on-site museum has some of the messages that survived.

Even if the tree no longer exists, its meaning will not disappear.

Bethel Woods, which has operated the site for many years, is seeking proposals to create artwork from the salvaged wood. These works will be exhibited next year at the museum. The site is also home to several saplings made from grafts of the message tree.

Bethel Woods will at some point host a regenerative planting ceremony, and one of those trees could be planted on the site. Plans aren’t certain yet, but Hitch would like to see the project come to fruition.

“There’s this symbolism of planting something that will be the message tree for the next generation,” he said.