On February 8, 2024, thirteen posters from the Sled Hill Café are up for sale at the Swann Auction Galleries in New York City. In 1968, the Sled Hill Café, The Elephant, and the Café Expresso hosted nightly music performances in the run-up to the 1969 Woodstock Festival at Bethel, NY. On any given night, folk, jazz, funk, and rock ‘n’ roll music could be heard at the Sled Hill. The owner, Bud Sife, purchased the building in 1946. For a while, it was a lumber-drying shed for a nearby sawmill. However, in 1962, it was re-purposed into an ice cream parlor. By 1965, it was a macrobiotic restaurant; upon receiving a liquor license, it became a nightclub.

Frank Spinelli, one of four bartenders in 1970, recalls, “It was a cobbled-together construction of dump castoffs, bargain lumber, and garage-sale secondhand.” In other words, it was a bit down home and not the chicest spot, but its most significant advantage was that it closed at 3 a.m.—well after the other music venues. So, for musicians playing all-nighters in home rehearsal sessions or finishing up gigs at the Café Expresso or The Elephant, the bar offered the perfect place to decompress and catch up on village gossip.

On any given night, one might see Billy Batson of Holy Moses, Rick Danko, Levon Helm or Richard Manuel of The Band, Van Morrison, Paul Butterfield, and Bob Dylan alternately jamming on Sled Hill’s stub of a stage or sitting at the bar.

A Poughkeepsie, NY, collector is putting the performance posters up for auction in two lots. Jerry Jerominek executed all but two of the posters. Spider Barbour personally signed the one for his group, Chrysalis. The Swann Auction Galleries sale category is “subculture,” and the sale number is 2658. For those who wish to own a piece of those magical times, visit here.

~ Weston Blelock