DIRTYDANCING Meets Brooklyn Chic
LIZ SPIKOL I JE STAFF
Wildflowers on Snake Pond on the new Shaverton Trail
in Andes, NY in the Catskills Mountains.

I was at the National Museum of American Jewish History not
long ago, and there on the second floor, in a glass case preserved
as if it were a treasure from Tutankhamun, was a keychain (with
key attached) from the legendary Grossinger’s hotel in the
Catskills. There was a menu, too (“No fried orders on the Sab-
bath”), and a brochure titled “THIS IS GROSSINGER’S.”
Seeing these items, as well as others from the Catskills, I was suf-
fused by a tearful nostalgia; I could smell the clean air and the fresh-
cut grass, could hear the long tweet of the lifeguard’s whistle over
the splashes and shouts of the children.

Mind you, I was entitled to none of these memories, as I’m not
yet 50, and entirely missed the heyday of Grossinger’s and its ilk —
I’ve never even been to the Catskills.

But such is the hold the Borscht Belt has on the popular Jewish
imagination — thanks, in no small part, to the movie Dirty Dancing.

And while misty-eyed sentimentalism is not particular to Jews, boy
oh boy, are we good at it.

The peak of Jewish life at the Catskills probably came in the 1950s,
when millions were shelled out for new construction, and guests
spent $55 million in a single summer, according to The Forward.

But it was not to last.

14 JUNE 2, 2016
The 1960s would transform the region, as other vacation ven-
ues removed ethnic restrictions, and air travel became increas-
ingly accessible.

Jewish families began to go elsewhere for vacation — to go
abroad, even — forcing gigantic resorts like Grossinger’s and the
Concord to shift emphasis. No longer did they hire tummlers to
amuse the crowd; up to one-third of the visitors weren’t Jewish any-
way. (A tummler might have amused a non-Jewish crowd, but per-
haps not in the way that was intended.)
In 1986, the Grossinger family sold the resort, effectively putting
an end to the dance- and music-besotted Jewish idyll in the moun-
tains of New York.

A funny thing happened on the way to irrelevance, though —
the Catskills got hip.

Starting a couple years ago, headlines about the Catskills changed
from “Ruined Splendor” to “Not Your Granny’s Vacay” and “The
Catskills Gets Its Groove Back.”
New York magazine, in 2014, pointed to “a new crew of city
dwellers heading there for the utter, rural remoteness … and to join
the growing, tight-knit community of expat ‘hicksters.’” Last year,
The New York Times put the Catskills on its list of “52 Places to
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Go in 2015,” noting, “The Catskills are being re-
shaped by a new generation of fresh-air-seeking ur-
banites.” In many ways, the beauty of the Catskills is the same
today as it’s always been. There’s a Thoreau-like satisfaction
to be taken in the fragrant pine forests, the slow-running
streams, the cascading waterfalls and miles of trails winding through
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www.jfcsphilly.org The peak of Jewish life at the Catskills
probably came in the 1950s, when
millions were shelled out for new construction, and
guests spent $55 million in a single summer,
mountain meadows and farmland. Peace and quiet and an unam-
biguous remove from car horns and TV screens and all the pressures
of modern life.

At the same time, it’s not so lonely that
you’ll turn into Richard Proenneke: You
can emerge from a sun-streaked day of
fly-fishing or walking in the woods and
shower up at your boutique hotel for
dinner at a Vogue-approved Italian
restaurant or an eatery that features lo-
cally sourced ingredients. Breweries, wineries and vineyards abound.

(There’s a reason Condé Nast Traveler called the Catskills “New
York’s new culinary retreat.”)
There are plenty of things to do in summer, from daylong music
according to The Forward. But it was not to last.

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