Myron Gittell has spent decades preserving a part of Woodstock history that is often overshadowed by the music.
A former Concord waiter, Borscht Belt historian, Sullivan County Historical Society board member and author of Woodstock ’69: Three Days of Peace, Music and Medical Care, Gittell has become a go-to source for stories about the people who helped care for the hundreds of thousands who gathered in Bethel in August 1969.
Now, he is asking the public to help solve a Woodstock mystery.
Gittell is searching for recordings, scripts or other documentation of radio announcements that were reportedly broadcast before and during the festival. Some of those announcements urged people not to travel to the site because of overcrowding, while others called on doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to come help.
“People talk about those radio announcements, and it’s part of Woodstock lore,” Gittell said. “But I would love to find those.”
Gittell’s interest in Woodstock’s medical response grew out of his own background in emergency services. He became an EMT in 1973 and joined the Monticello Volunteer Ambulance Corps. During county ambulance meetings in the 1970s, he began hearing stories about the scale of the medical response at Woodstock.
One fellow ambulance corps member described Woodstock as one of the largest disaster-response situations in the country at the time, not because of the severity of any single incident, but because of the sheer number of people who needed care.
That caught Gittell’s attention.
“I’m a history buff, and here I’m an EMT,” he said.
Over the years, he collected stories from local ambulance workers, medical volunteers and people who were at the festival. Those interviews eventually became the foundation for his book, which documents the medical care provided during the three-day festival.
Gittell said Woodstock Ventures hired doctors and nurses, but local volunteers also played a major role. Ambulance crews from Sullivan County and neighboring areas responded, while helicopters helped move people from staging areas like the former Liberty Airport near Grossinger’s.
Some people, he said, woke up expecting a normal day and ended up helping at one of the most famous gatherings in American music history.
“They wound up helping out at the most amazing party of the time,” Gittell said.
But one missing piece remains: the actual audio or paper trail of the public service announcements that helped shape what happened that weekend.
Gittell has already checked with major archives, including the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan and NPR archivists. So far, he has not found the recordings he is looking for.
Radio Catskill’s Jason Dole also spoke with Dr. Neil Hitch, senior curator at the Museum at Bethel Woods, about the search.
Hitch said he has heard oral histories from people who remember radio announcements telling ticket-holders to turn around and go home because the festival was overwhelmed. But he said he has never heard a recording of those announcements.
“I’ve never heard one, certainly not in our collection,” Hitch said.
Hitch said the search may come down to finding someone who happened to record the radio at home that weekend — possibly on a reel-to-reel or cassette recorder.
That is how one known Woodstock radio recording survived. Hitch said a man named Steve Alexander recorded a promotional announcement for the festival while taping music off the radio. That recording later became part of the Bethel Woods collection.
Gittell is hoping something similar may have happened with the emergency announcements.
The search is narrow: one specific weekend in August 1969, possibly on radio stations in Sullivan County, New York City or other parts of the region.
But Gittell said even a long shot is worth pursuing.
“If you have a lead for a lead, I’ll follow it,” he said.
Anyone who may have recordings, scripts or information about Woodstock radio announcements from August 1969 can contact Gittell at myrongit@yahoo.com.
Listeners can also contact Radio Catskill, which can pass information along to Gittell.