The Rise and Fall of Catskills Resort Tourism… and Why It’s Back!
New Yorkers hungry for fresh mountain air, delicious food, and the American way of leisure used to flock to the Catskills by the thousands, and by the 1950s, more than a million people inhabited the summertime world of bungalow colonies, summer camps, and small hotels. These institutions not only shaped American Jewish culture, enabling Jews to become more assimilated, but at the same time introduced the American public to the culture of our immigrant Jewish population.
The Growth of the Catskills Resort Region
The Catskills had already been a resort area for non-Jewish Americans in the 19th century prior to when Eastern European Jews began to emigrate here in the early 20th century. Some of these immigrants became farmers in the area and as their Jewish peers living and working in more urban areas became more prosperous, they looked to do something they could never have imagined doing in the old country: take a vacation! However, they weren’t welcome in most of what was still an anti-Semitic world. In the 1920s and into the 1930s, some hotels and resorts’ advertisements refused to accept Jews and even indicated “No Hebrews” in their ads. This issue led to a need for alternatives that would readily accept Jewish families as guests.
In response to this, Jewish farmers began taking on boarders. Their boarding houses morphed into small hotels and bungalow colonies — a cluster of small rental summer homes. “Borscht Belt” hotels, bungalow colonies, summer camps, and kuchaleyns (a Yiddish name for self-catered boarding houses) flourished. These bungalows usually included a kitchen/living room/dinette, one bedroom, and a screened porch, with simple entertainment such as bingo or a movie. The kuchaleyns were also visited often by middle and working-class Jewish New Yorkers. The larger hotels provided Friday night and holiday services, as well as kosher cooking. Because of the many Jewish guests, this area was nicknamed the Jewish Alps and “Solomon County” (a modification of Sullivan County) by many people who visited there.
The Good Times
Once Jews began to vacation in the Catskills in large numbers, they began to develop their own built-in communities in the area. Farms, businesses, professionals, day schools, yeshivas… Yiddish was spoken within these communities, too, and 95 percent of them were kosher. They enjoyed being around their own people, and being as the big resorts — like Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s, the Concord, and the Nevele — basically pioneered the “all-inclusive vacation” it became quite popular amongst the Jewish American population. These big resorts offered three meals a day, snacks, child care, entertainment, sports facilities, everything you can get now nowadays in all-inclusive resorts!
Some resorts, such as Grossinger’s, came complete with their own airstrip and post office. That resort served about 150,000 guests a year and became the first resort in the world to use artificial snow for skiing! Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club, near Monticello, was the longest running of the Borscht Belt resorts. It was also known as a sports mecca. The legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach stayed there, and Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain worked there as a bellhop while in high school. Boxers Muhammad Ali, Floyd Patterson, and Leon Spinks all trained at Kutsher’s, too. The Concord, in Kiamesha Lake, was the largest of the resorts with more than 1,500 guest rooms and a dining room that sat 3,000.
The entertainment was also first-rate. Musicians like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Dean Martin, and comics Rodney Dangerfield, Henny Youngman, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld all toured the hotels.
The Downfall of Catskills Tourism
The Borscht Belt resorts reached their peak in the 1950s and 60s, often accommodating up to 150,000 guests a year after access to the area improved with the opening of the George Washington Bridge and the upgrade of old travel routes such as old New York State Route 17. However, tourism in the Catskills region began to decline by the late 1960s. Railways began cutting service to the area, and passenger train access became limited with the September 1953 termination of some passenger trains through the Borscht Belt. According to a 1940 vacation travel guide published by the railroad, there were hundreds of establishments listed that were situated at or near the railway’s stations. The following year, the New York Central ceased running passenger trains on its Catskill Mountain Branch and the area suffered further as a travel destination in the late 1950s and especially by the 1960s.
The popularity of air travel also increased, and as it was cheap it allowed the new generation to visit more exotic and warmer destinations. This coincided with the decline of anti-Semitism, so Jews were now more accepted to go other places. Lastly, more and more women began remaining in the workforce after marriage, and could not take off for the entire summer to relocate to the Catskills anymore. By the late 1950s, many began closing, with most gone by the 1970s, despite some major resorts continuing to operate (a few of them into the 1990s!).
They’re Back!
There’s a joke about tourism in the area… that the Catskills have had more comebacks than Tony Bennett, and it’s nearly true. The first wave came in the late 1880s, then a few decades later when Jewish families swarmed the region. Woodstock in the 1960s brought the hippies to the area, and nowadays, Brooklynites and hipsters have their sights set on Catskills getaways. And while some may find it questionable as to why such comebacks were needed — why the downfalls in tourism in the first place? — it is as much a story of resilience as it is one of reinvention.
There is a sense of remoteness in the Catskills that many New Yorkers, and many Americans in general, cannot find close to home. When visitors came to the Catskills in the 19th century, they didn’t find modern hotel luxuries…there were no bells to ring, no waiters to conciliate, no baths to take unless they fancied a plunge into the rushing foaming mountain stream nearby… people came here to paint. Artists were mesmerized by the romanticism of the outdoors.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the region attracted a hearty, entrepreneurial crowd and despite some major resorts closing that had been up and running successfully since the establishment of the Borscht Belt area, celebrities began to buy homes there. In recent years, visitors from New York City have started to set up cafes, bars, woodworking shops, art studios, and breweries in the area.
The Catskills have retained their beauty, thanks largely to protections instituted by New York State in the early 20th century. There has also been a wave of stylish new Catskill hotels, luxury campsites, shops, and restaurants. That wave began nearly a decade ago, but had gathered momentum particularly during the pandemic, as more and more urbanites began to seek wide-open spaces. Getting out to something completely different is a breath of fresh air, and if a breath of fresh air is what you’re looking for, there’s no need to look further than the Catskills.
