The Chance in Poughkeepsie: Peter Shapiro’s Rock and Roll Playhouse to Honor Garcia, Weir and Grateful Dead
On June 4, 1983, Andy Eisner and some pals set out from their New Jersey homes and headed due north to a city they had never been to, a city they would never visit again.
There was no GPS to be had; no Siri; no Google Maps; no nothing, no how, no way. This band of bold adventurers were living in an era now known as the O.G.—they were using hard copy maps to reach Poughkeepsie, NY.
Their destination was a former vaudeville house on Crannell Street, just a few blocks from New York State’s oldest newspaper, and the nation’s second-oldest behind the Hartford Courant, the Poughkeepsie Journal.
The occasion was a performance by the Jerry Garcia Band—and the Eisner crew was stoked. But the trip took a really long time, and it grew laborious. Never ones to back down from...