You Couldn't Hear Them, and You Could Barely See Them, but Sagaponack Resident Says She Was Thrilled To See the Beatles at Shea Stadium

Cathy Santacroce Worwetz, who grew up in Sag Harbor, remembers when the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, marking the beginning of Beatlemania in the United States.

“We got an allowance,” she recalled, “and I spent all of mine on fan magazines and records.”

When the film “A Hard Day’s Night” was released that August, Worwetz saw it “eight and a half times” at the Sag Harbor Cinema, “back when you could just stay in your seat and see the second show. The half show was because I had a curfew that night!”

But perhaps the biggest coup came a year later, on August 15, 1965, when Worwetz, then 11, her sister, Sue, 12, and two friends got to see the Beatles perform live at Shea Stadium.

“It was exciting being there,” she recalled. “We didn’t have the best seats, and you couldn’t really hear them. Afterward, my uncle took us out to eat, and we all cried into our pizza about how excited we were.”

Worwetz, who now lives in Sagaponack, doesn’t remember pestering her parents about going to see the Beatles. “I think my dad may have surprised us,” she said. She still has a copy of the typewritten letter he sent to Sid Bernstein Productions requesting four tickets for the show, which set him back $22.60.

August 15 marked the Feast of the Assumption, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. “My uncle drove out that morning early, and we all went to church,” she said. “After Mass, we got in the car and drove to Flushing.”

Worwetz doesn’t remember what she was wearing — “I think shorts and one of those ruffly shirts that were popular back then,” she said. Someone had a Kodak Instamatic camera and took some photos, but from the second deck vantage point, the Beatles looked like, well, beetles.

Worwetz and her sister also attended the Beatles’ second concert at Shea Stadium on August 23, 1966, shortly before they gave up touring for good just six days later after performing at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

“I still have all my records and some of those fan magazines,” Worwetz said. Asked how long her infatuation with the group lasted, she replied, “What’s today’s date?”

She said she saw George Harrison perform on his 1974 U.S. tour, and has caught several shows by both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, including the Concert for New York that McCartney organized after the September 11 terrorist bombings.

Worwetz said she still recalls watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Worwetz’s mother, who was also watching the program, turned to them and said, “This is just a fad, girls.”