Why did the Jewish hotels in the Catskills fall into such disrepair?

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

It's the same story with the gay parts of cities: Once you become mainstream, you don't need to ghettoize.

[quote]It's the same story with the gay parts of cities

They don't become slums. Other people move in.

Two reasons I can think of. One is affordable travel. People would fly to Las Vegas, Orlando, or Atlantic City, rather than drive to the Catskills. The second is that Jews felt welcome elsewhere.

Provincetown went through a big change in the last 40 years. It used to be hard to get to, and affordable. Now it’s easy, and expensive.

Travel by jet became available and less expensive in the late 50's and early 60's which made international travel an option. Would you prefer to spend a week in the Catskills or a week traveling in London, Paris and Rome?

r5 is right.

The NYT did a deep-dive on this very subject about a year ago (I think Dirty Dancing came up a lot in the article, too). One expert they asked put it succinctly: the Jewish resorts declined fast because of the "Two A's" in the 60s -- assimilation and aviation.

I've driven around livertyville. Even toyed with the idea of moving up there with my SO. There were a few Orthodox Jews around. Very Sentinelese.

I want to visit.

Lots of articles about this. Thwe jewish resorts aren't the only things that died---lots of resort town near big cities went into decline from the 60s onward, ditto local amusement parks . It became easier with jet travel and interstate highways to visit places far away. Some places have clawed back, but many have not.

We lost our cash cow Johnny Castle.

[quote]Cappelli told the NY Times that the golf course is already undergoing renovation. He hopes to build a conference center, housing, spa and chalet-style lodging that will lure fickle New Yorkers and other leisure and business visitors back upstate.

[quote]After a long period of decline, interest in the Catskills has been rekindled by the planned March 2018 opening of the Resorts World Casino in the nearby town of Thompson, NY. The $750 million development will feature a 100,000 square foot casino with 130 table games and 2150 slot machines, 332 suites, and 27,000 square feet of convention center and entertainment space, including, no doubt, a ballroom or two.

Here's the link (for some reason there's also a pop-up video of a lesbian talking about money)

[quote]I've driven around livertyville. Even toyed with the idea of moving up there with my SO. There were a few Orthodox Jews around. Very Sentinelese.

You don't want to buy any property in that area, I inherited a 5 acre plot in South Fallsburg that borders on the Nevasink river. The area is inhabited by Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who control most of the towns. The area is depressed and land values never rise. Everything is closed on Saturday their Sabbath day. It is difficult to sell property because it is economically depressed.

All the old Jews who enjoyed the Borscht Belt died out. The young Jews who came after them had no desire to get stuck in some bumfuck place in the woods when they could go to Vegas.

Sounds like a blast!

All the Hoomans left at once!

The food was terrible and such small portions!

I just decided me and my Morty should go to our condo in Boca for the winter. My Morty still wanted to go up to the mountains, so I got very verklempt and told him that idea was farblondjet and I simply didn't want to spend that much time near his meshuga mother in some hotseplots place. Morty got angry, told me I was acting fercockt, and stormed off. I found him in the kitchen mixing up the Kosher dishes with the regular dishes and I told him he was a momzer and an alter cocker. It's going to be a miserable drive down the Florida.

How do the Catskills compare with the Poconos?

Well just look at that place in OP’s picture. Who would want to stay THERE?

R21 one is schmaltzier than the other

I haven't been to the Catskills for a few years but I did a lot of hiking in the area. Some of the hikes were on older hotel properties built in the 1800's that went bankrupt or burned down like the The Kaaterskill Hotel. An article I read suggested many hotels burned down when the owner realized the insurance money was worth more than the hotel.

The Overlook Mountain House is a fun hike. There's also a fire tower in the area for some great views.

They used to get so glammed up every night in the '50s.

I'm old enough to remember when Jews were barred from hotels, resorts, clubs and restaurants. Places like the Catskills weren't established due to "ghettoizing"; it was due to anti-Jewish discrimination and bigotry. In that nothing has changed in the US. One need look no further than DL for abundant evidence.

Thank you, R4, for totally missing the point.

I totally got the point.

I just made another point, which for some (very clear) reason you did not get. It's not so hard.

Mutilation has its consequences.

R28 No offense intended, but you made an irrelevant point.

I didn't say the two situations were alike in every respect: I said the Jews abandoned the Jewish resorts for the same reason the Gays abandoned the Gay Ghettos. I didn't speak to who did or did not take their places.

[quote] No offense intended, but you made an irrelevant point.

Oh, do shut up - it was totally relevant to the title of this thread - which you should read again.

Another factor in their decline might be... the invention of air conditioning.

Back in the early 20th century, people on the eastern seaboard spent as much of the summer as they could in the mountains or at the seashore, because their homes in the cities were stifling and unbearable. So they went to these resort not because they were so interesting or entertaining, but because home was so awful and there were so few travel alternatives available. Once air travel because safe and affordable, other destinations began to welcome Jews, and places like Vegas and Florida put in air conditioning, well, the Catskills didn't have that much to offer.

OMG...those places were so much fun. Back in the mid to late 1960s, my mother used to go to The Concords hairdresser weekend as she was a colorist... What a blast

[quote]Places like the Catskills weren't established due to "ghettoizing"; it was due to anti-Jewish discrimination and bigotry.

Are you from some alternate universe in which ghettos weren't the product of discrimination and bigotry?

@R19, Mrs Dr Barry Weiss, DDS, Great Neck, LI--You're back!! I love when you stop by!

Why did the Connecticut shore die as a destination? Same reason, I’ll bet.

The buildings up there are made of wood (not brick or stone) and were not built properly. They are not well maintained and they are full of fungus.

There were a few Jewish hotels in England as well. They also shut down in the mid-80s. They lost out when Israel became an affordable destination. Just 5 hours from London by plane.

How do you know the hotels were Jewish? Were they circumcised?

R39 - you're a funny guy. But you know that of course.

Because they discovered uncut can be tasty

[quote]Why did the Connecticut shore die as a destination? Same reason, I’ll bet.

Greenwich and Darien aren't dead.

This documentary sums it all up pretty well. It’s on Netflix or Amazon.

The Connecticut shore once were the summer homes of the wealthy NYers. Suck as Katherine Hepburn’s estate in Saybrook. I wasn’t referring to commuter homes.

[quote] the Resorts World Casino

Didn’t Trump used to own that? And bankrupted it?

Also, men can afford divorces now. They didn’t make enough money in the 50s & early 60s. The wives and kids would go up to the Catskills & stay all week & the husbands would go up & stay with them on the weekends. During the week, the men screwed around while the wives & kids were away. My husband said his uncles & their friends all used to love summer because of it. His father, though, couldn’t even afford the Catskills. He was lazy & didn’t like to work hard.

They should make them into wedding venues to take advantage of the country scenery. Also inns with spas and strawberry picking and apple orchards and Japanese onsen and bicycle rentals.

Although the Catskills and Borscht Belt comedy circuit really boomed in the post-WWII period, the area was known decades earlier as "the Jewish Alps". There is a really great novel called "The Rise of David Levinsky" by Abraham Cahan that was published in 1917 and uses a fancy Jewish Alps resort called Rigi Kulm (the name of the peak of a Swiss mountain) as a setting for a portion of the story. Highly recommend the book: an unsung classic about an ambivalent immigration experience.

Wow?!

Are these spectacular abandoned hotels and resorts still aroundlime this and in this state Luke the video upthread illustrates or the poster who hiked through and explored?

I can't believe with the homeless problems they aren't shooting galleries or communal squat cittiesfor warmth and shelter? Or is it too remote to be a reasonable sustaining haven andf sorts?

That video, if abandoned places exist like this still looks like it would be a retro picker's wet dream for some objects and fixtures or fittings maybe?

Or, are the places too near security or patrolled to work in this way if it's not the seclusion and upstate aspect?

^ meant to add that the Kutcshers dodo referenced looks great and I'm going to seek this out - thank you DL.

I think that a large potion of the DL family has no real understanding as to the "restricted" days of the 40s-60s. Restriction did not mean that Jews were looked down on or suffered WASP snobbery; it literally mean that Jews could not go to the top hotels and resorts in the country during those years. My family was involved in owning some of the top favorite getaways of the UC such as:

The Cloister in Sea Island, Ga. A presidential favorite---my father played golf there with every president during his life time(up until Clinton and excusing Carter as he was not a golfer.)

The Homestead in Hot Springs, Va.

The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va

The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Co.

This was a time when families vacationed completely differently from today, regardless of class or religion. They went to a hotel with all the amenities they wanted and dined three times a day in the location. It was called the "American Plan." and that was the standard at those hotels up through the 70s. Jews were not only forbidden from buying property on the uber exclusive Sea Island, but they could not enter the hotel for any reason. I remember my father telling me about Henry Morganthau, the Sec of the Treasury under FDR and author of The New Deal, coming to The Cloister with a group of political sorts for a golfing week, and he was turned away even though he was accompanied by cabinet members as well as a Vice President. So, as you can see, no matter how genteel, high born or influential one might be, if he was a Jew, he wasn't getting in.

It was that way at Augusta National up until a mere 24 years ago. However a member could bring a Jewish guest, but they could never be considered for membership.

I don't think I am overstating the problem by saying that the primary reason for the Catskills hotels was that they gave Jewish families the ability to vacation like the WASPs.

I have a bit of experience on the flip side of the coin which was my life in the hospitality world of my father. I was engaged to my husband (who was Jewish) in the 70s which was likely the tail end of the Catskills glory era. My (now) husband was a student at OSU, but he would go to The Concord Hotel and work as a lifeguard in the summers(much to his mother's distaste.) He is an alarmingly handsome man, and back then all his friends called him "The male Farrah Fawcett" not because he was blond, but because he stopped traffic everywhere he went. Six foot four, swimmer's bod, a face which looked like an amalgam of Colin Farrell and Jesse Palmer. And that dazzling white toothed Farrah smile was the capper.

So every summer he would watch the pool by day, and then service the weekday widows whose husbands stayed in the city Mon-Fri at night. In three months he would make, tax free, more than he did per year in the first three years of his legal practice. And that's not counting the Rolex and similar gifts of gratitude given at the end of the season. I always hoped to see The Concord in person, but we never made it there.

R51, I'm not OP but I thank you for your contribution to this thread. Very instructive! (<--no sarcasm there)

To r51's point. My ex's parents were secular Jews, third generation Americans. They got married on Christmas Day in the late 1960s. When I first heard that, I thought it was odd since none of their Christian friends would have been likely to attend. But back then, Jews and gentiles really didn't mix socially. Or at least they weren't expected to.

Very interesting, R51.

And your husband sounds hot af, good for you!

[quote]And your husband sounds hot af

Also straight af, though.

[quote]I think that a large potion of the DL family has no real understanding as to the "restricted" days of the 40s-60s.

Are you seriously on a gay site saying this?

R51 even the Breakers which certainly doesn’t have a WASPy image anymore used to be on the American Plan and when we first when there in the early 80s, no Jews were not forbidden, but it was a very WASPy vibe, totally different from today or the past 25 years. And the person who was the manager of the restaurant everyone ate there - he was called “Mr. Chris” and he had a thick German accent and I’ll bet money his father was a member of the Nazi party.

That said, I think if the Catskills resorts had continually stayed renovated and up to date, they would have remained relevant and eventually had cross over appeal.

R33, I stayed at the Concord. It was an epic vacation, for my family.

R36, you're absolutely clueless.

"That said, I think if the Catskills resorts had continually stayed renovated and up to date, they would have remained relevant and eventually had cross over appeal. "

No. There's nothing much to do there except stay in the hotels and eat at the restaurants and enjoy temperatures lower than NYC, which was a big deal before air conditioning but not now. These days people want to spend their vacations at places where there's actually something to do. Why go to the Catskills when you can go some place with a beach, or casinos, or the Louvre, or whatever it is you like. Maybe a few of the Catskills resorts might have survived if they'd modernized, only a few. For those who can afford to travel, there's too man other places to go.

you know you're really dead and gone if not even hipsters come to gentrify you.

R60/r61 except that they do. You ever heard of Hicksters? The Phoenicia diner?

The Catskills have had a Renaissance and are very hip these days if those hotels had stayed up to date, gotten a great executive chef, a good brand for a spa, etc, the next gens would still be going there.

I don’t know this for sure, but the wealthy ones came out to the Hamptons. I’d say that the summer population of East Hampton is about half Jewish.

no, never heard of those R62. maybe there are a few hipster hangout over there, but the Catskills are still dead and forgotten.

Freddy Roman at Grossinger's............ to die for.

Some of the resorts did update, but it ultimately didn't help. People had other choices. The smaller places usually had very specific clientele of modest means who came back every year (Joan Rivers talked about this in one of her memoirs), so when those people died, the reorts died with them. Without diminishing the role of changes in anti-semitism, a lot of resorts close to major cities hit the skids by the late 60s or early 70s. people had other options---they also had air conditioning at home. Some resorts wound up with a rough clientele---that happened to Geneva -on-the lake, a Lake Erie resort--bikers came and had gang fights and that scared away the middle income families who had previously rented a house with their friends for a week. The area has made a bit of a comeback but isn't anything like it once was.

[quote] They should make them into wedding venues to take advantage of the country scenery. Also inns with spas and strawberry picking and apple orchards and Japanese onsen and bicycle rentals

And pumpkin picking. Hay rides & corn mazes with pumpkin spice lattes ar the end

[quote] I don’t know this for sure, but the wealthy ones came out to the Hamptons. I’d say that the summer population of East Hampton is about half Jewish

More like 75% of the summer community The Jewish Center has been in East Hampton since the 1950s. Now there’s a big orthodox center there. East Hampton has been what we would call liberal and what snobs would call déclassé since the 1920s, when they let Catholics like the Bouviers live there. Southampton would never have allowed that. The only Catholics allowed were the Irish household staff. As for Jews, there were a few in Southampton back then, the tweedy “Dress British, think Yiddish” brigade who changed their names to Robbins from Rabinowitz. But the hoity toits preferred to look down in them as NOKD. They were as bad as the Irish! People used to actually use the term “oriental” to describe Jews.

Now come on R67 - done in the right way, some of these areas and resorts could have real upstate appeal - English speaking novelty USA destination interest too?

Trade on a whole neo-Woodstock SXSW in the North vibe of organic Vegan Dollar spend.

Fire Island in the CatskilsCatskils for landlubbers not looking for another Adriatic party cruise?

Nutloaf City where the Judith's can train for triathlons?

Whole region sounds fabulous and something different.

There were some grand old hotels in Atlantic City before the hideous casinos came in. Some real architectural treasures gone forever!

R56 I honestly have no idea what you meant by your statement. What does the fact that Data Lounge is a gay site have to do with the fact that many DLers aren't Jewish, and therefore knew little of the restriction era? And of course there are a few here who weren't alive during the era of Grossinger's. Kutscher's, and The Concord.

It's actually quite predictable I suppose. There is always going to be one person who hates you even if 5 like you.

sorry not sorry

USA - don't know the date.

R69 I totally agree! There are still plenty of places to stay that are considered cool and close to the city. Especially with flying today the way it is, some people appreciate a short drive.

I wonder if "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" will visit one of the resorts in future episodes.

Those places would have been ideal to convert into fat-camps/health centers when they were trendy, and its ideal country for rehabs and now perfect for ashrams.

That's funny, since one of the biggest pluses of these hotels were you could literally order every entree and dish off the menu and it would be given to you. Ok, probably it was rare to do that, but you could have two or more entress and sample the other dishes if you wanted to, 3 x a day plus snack breaks. It was like a cruise on land. Plus there were sports, different classes, an activity director who went around doing magic, making jokes, emceeing, etc. Plus there were things like the guy who painted with the empty toilet paper cardboard rolls, the Simple Simon guy, bingo, trivia contests, etc. Plus there were swimming pool, children's day camps where the kids could be separated from their folks during the day, plus top stars in the nighclubs in the evening. Plus there were sometimes late night shows for dirtier comedians and other acts. There was always a lot to do at these places. I think they would have survived had gambling come up their sooner to be able to compete with Atlantic City and Vegas. But nowadays, there's gambling at the former Concord, there's a big indoor waterpark complex, so you never know if the Kutsher's-type model might be tried again.

Perfect description: a cruise on land.

I hate the architecture.

Are there still hotels and resorts or destinations discreetly considered Jewish? Or is that all passé?

I remember when club performers would be careful to include jokes or slang early in their act that only jewish people would get so as to signal their sympathy (or faux sympathy), and gain their 'buy-in' and be assured of their patronage. It was a really strange kind of thing. But jews were as hungry then as gays for any kind of acknowledgement.

R76 It may be a bit "busy" but I don't hate it. It's a mad amalgam of the Chateau Lake Louise and the Banff Springs Hotel with just a bit of The Breakers thrown in for good measure. It works in that scenic location(to me anyway.)

You couldn’t go to a hotel or restaurant in NY if you were a Jew in the 1950s? I find that hard to believe. Maybe some deplorable town update would be shady if they saw a Jewish name, but I can’t see them barring entry. Certainly not NYC.

Well, [italic]Gentleman's Agreement[/italic] was made in 1947, r81. One issue in the movie was a Jewish character moving to NYC with his family having trouble finding a new home because people didn't want to rent to Jews. And when Gregory Peck's character tries to reserve a room at an upscale hotel in the country for his honeymoon, he was rejected for having a Jewish surname.

Even in NYC in the early 20th century, there were people who didn't want Jews in their hotels or restaurants, working in their business, or living on their block. Even in a city with a huge Jewish population, there were people who wanted areas free of "those people".

Of course in the rest of the country, it was worse. Those were the days when segregation was perfectly legal in a good chunk of the country and informally practiced through the rest, and the Klu Klux Klan was a massive political force. The Klan had a sideline in persecuting Jews when they had time to spare from murdering African-Americans, and yes, I should think that anti-Semitic discrimination was blatant and widespread in the South, the Midwest, much of the Northeast, the desert states, and... well, anywhere conservatism reigned.

I suppose Los Angeles was largely free of anti-Semitism considering who had founded and was running the entertainment industry, but there was discrimination even there.

[QUOTE] well, anywhere conservatism reigned.

And yet look who drives our US policy towards Israel in favor of the Joos

[quote] I hate the architecture.

Mohunk Mountain was not a part of the Jewish Catskills

[quote]I suppose Los Angeles was largely free of anti-Semitism considering who had founded and was running the entertainment industry, but there was discrimination even there.

We had San Marino and The Jonathan Club. Also, the Wilshire Country Club -- very "restricted."

R81 How old are you? Did you not see Auntie Mame?

Restriction was EVERYWHERE and NY was no different. If anything it may have been worse because of the high concentration of Jewish people, which of course caused WASPY sorts to move heaven and earth to keep them(and Italians and Irish) out.

Oh, and "Deplorable" just doesn't figure in much when one is talking about the 40s-kid 60s. There were precious few social liberals in the real(non academic) world. You must have led a very sheltered life to not even know about this.

I remember hearing from my uncle that years ago Jewish people couldn't get apartments on Park Avenue. Also, there were many places in the Poconos that were restricted including a place called Stricklands (which I don't know if that place still exists).

I know you'll probably think me insane, but even though I'm Catholic, I would actually love to spend time at a resort surrounded by Jewish people. After those horrible shootings in Pittsburgh, I donated money for the maintenance of the local Eruv, since I know most gentiles aren't aware of what that is.

In SoCal, the Jewish people used to stay in hotels out in places like Pomona. The whole American Plan deal with orange groves and a swimming pool.

[quote]I donated money for the maintenance of the local Eruv, since I know most gentiles aren't aware of what that is.

Most Jews aren't aware either.

My parents met in the Catskills, I forget which hotel (I grew up in California so never went there).

R87 correction: 40s-MID 60s, not kid 60s

[quote]I suppose Los Angeles was largely free of anti-Semitism considering who had founded and was running the entertainment industry, but there was discrimination even there.

In CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM Larry is banned from the golf course and he, Jeff and Suzy are reallly uncomfortable at WASP country clubs. He pretends to be a homophobic Yale graduate Reaganite to gain access but he is busted by members of the board at a baseball game with a black hooker.

[quote]The buildings up there are made of wood (not brick or stone) and were not built properly. They are not well maintained and they are full of fungus.

In general, once you stop maintaining the roof of any building it will become unfit for occupation in a short time. If you've got leaks, you've got mold and structural deterioration that will make it a teardown.

I'll take the brisket please, along with the kreplach soup and the kishka, to start. Jackie Mason is performing tonight! Want to take Fayola's dance class? We can do that after doing Simon Sez at 2. Always something to do and eat!

I wonder if Jews back then secretly ate bacon, the way Jewish teenagers would secretly bang Catholics.

R97 They also ate shellfish but not at home since it is not considered kosher.

The country clubs in LA were definitely "restricted" (the Los Angeles Country Club--the most WASPY, and the Bel-Air Country Club, where non-Jewish movie stars--like Dean Martin for example--were allowed). So the Hillcrest CC was founded (not sure when but before WW II) for the Jews like Jack Benny and George Burns and maybe the movie moguls. There might have been a few non-whites there since they were always the most "liberal" back in the post-war years. LA was a very racist city in fact. Even Santa Monica, where I live, had a black neighborhood and you still don't see many black people on the north side of Santa Monica where the rich people live.

Apparently the new season of "Mrs. Maisel" does visit the Catskills, as I suggested might be the case at R74.

There are still nice hotels in the Catskills, just not Jewish ones. This place looks super cool:

Groucho Marx had a funny joke about restricted hotels. He was once trying to use the swimming pool with his daughter, and he was told Jews were not allowed. He then said "My daughter is only half-Jewish, can she just go in up to her knees?" Funny man!

The Sagamore

[quote]I remember hearing from my uncle that years ago Jewish people couldn't get apartments on Park Avenue

Yes, that's why in those days they tended to live on Riverside Drive.

I used to go to Palm Beach at Christmas (70s/80s) and there was a Jewish Beach Club and a WASP one. My father who was English Jewish seemed to love going to the WASP club. No one thought of him as Jewish because he was English...but occasionally people would say things about not having Jews in the club, not realising he was Jewish.

But the Breakers (hotel) by the 70s was no longer restricted as it supposedly had been, and was now full of Jews.

r103, I'm getting flashbacks to vacations at locations Germans favor. All those sunloungers would have towels on them by 5am.