After witnessing twenty-five hours of heavy bombardment of Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814 during the War of 1812, lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key was sure that when dawn came, the British flag would be flying over Baltimore. That was not the case, and when he saw the American flag still flying, he wrote the first verse […]
On a farm far from the city on August 15, 1969, the Woodstock music festival entered into history and helped define a generation. The “Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music” was held at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm which was actually in Bethel, New York. Woodstock marked a pivotal moment in music and countercultural […]
Richie Havens, the iconic singer and guitarist, passed away yesterday at the age of 72. Though originally from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, by his late teens Havens had moved to Manhattan and made his home in Greenwich Village, which was in the midst of the beatnik/folk revival scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s.