Elliot Tiber

Elliot Tiber in Bologna, June 2009.

Elliot Tiber, born Elliot Teichberg in 1935, is an artist and screenwriter who has written a memoir about the Woodstock Festival, held in Bethel, New York, in 1969.

Tiber's 2007 memoir Taking Woodstock, written with Tom Monte, was adapted as a movie of the same name by Ang Lee. The film opened in the United States in August 2009. Tiber is portrayed by Demetri Martin, best known for his stand-up comedy.

Early life

Tiber was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents. His family moved to White Lake in Bethel in 1955 where they acquired a rooming house that they expanded into a motel, called the El Monaco Motel, at the intersection of New York Route 17B and New York Route 55 near the southeast shore of White Lake.

Tiber attended Brooklyn College and received a BFA from Hunter College. He was in the MFA program at Pratt Institute.

Taking Woodstock

In his book Taking Woodstock, Tiber says he was present at the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, and that he had a part in bringing the Woodstock Festival to Bethel, New York on 15-17 August 1969.

Tiber said he led a closeted life in Bethel in the early 1960s as he spent time managing his parents' El Monaco Motel, serving as President of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, and, at the same time, participating in the gay scene in New York, where he lived.

According to Taking Woodstock, Tiber read that Wallkill, Orange County, New York had on July 15, 1969 -- 30 days before the music festival was to start -- pulled the plug on the planned Woodstock Festival at the Mills Industrial Park northeast of Middletown, New York.

Tiber says in the book that he had a permit for the White Lake Music and Arts Festival, a planned chamber music event at his motel. He contacted Michael Lang on or about 18 July and pitched the idea of having the festival on 15 acres (61,000 m²) along the edge of White Lake by the motel.

According to Taking Woodstock, when Lang said the motel property was too small, he introduced the producers to dairy farmer Max Yasgur, and helped facilitate the deal.

Lang, however, says that Tiber referred him to a local real estate salesman, and that the salesman drove Lang, without Tiber, to Yasgur's farm. Sam Yasgur, son of Max Yasgur, agrees with Lang's version, and says that his mother, who is still alive, says Max did not know Tiber. Artie Kornfeld, a Woodstock organizer, has said he found out about Yasgur’s farm from his own sources.

Tiber left Bethel shortly after Woodstock and soon moved to Los Angeles, where he became a movie set designer. The motel became an Italian restaurant and was torn down in 2004. It is now marked by a clock tower welcoming people to White Lake.

Screenwriter

His 1970s book, Rue Haute, was made into a French-language film directed by his domestic partner, André Ernotte. It was Belgium's entry for the 49th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film in 1977. The book was released in English in the United States in 1977 under the name High Street.

Teaching career

He taught creative writing at New School University, fine art at Hunter College, and art design history at the New York Institute of Technology.

Books

• High Street - Avon (1977)
• Knock on Woodstock: The Uproarious, Uncensored Story of the Woodstock Festival, the Gay Man Who Made It Happen, and How He Earned His Ticket to Freedom - Joel Friedlander (1994) ISBN 0-9641806-1-8
• Taking Woodstock (with Tom Monte) - Square One Publishers (June 15, 2007) ISBN 0-7570-0293-5
• Palm Trees On the Hudson (2010)

See also

• Taking Woodstock (book)

External links

• Gaystock
• Elliot Tiber website
• Elliot Tiber - A Woodstock Story
• Palm Trees on the Hudson website