The Borscht Belt: Books

Longstreth's ramble was an intimate journey, a four-hundred-mile hike for ?fun and fish and freedom? filled with chance encounters and colorful characters, a ?walkabout? through the natural wonders of the high peaks and rugged cloves, providing rare, early-1900s impressions of the villages along the way: places like Woodstock, Windham, Hunter, Stamford, Grand Gorge, Roxbury, Palenville, and Phoenicia. The dairy farms and boardinghouses where Longstreth spent his nights listening to local lore and legend are gone, as is the Catskill Mountain House from whose boardwalk Longstreth caught ?Natty Bumpo's view? of ?all creation.' But thanks to the Catskill Park's protective ?blue line, ? the world-famous scenic beauty that inspired the Hudson River School painters remains today just as Longstreth found it, still displaying ?its own peculiar charm'a something not found elsewhere.'

From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication. Many of the postcards produced during this "golden age," and even some from later years,can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores and five and dimes across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of the Catskills of New York showcases more than two hundred of the best, most evocative vintage postcards available.

Sullivan County, the Borscht Belt, the Catskills-all are synonyms for the greatest American Jewish resort area, the playground of about one million visitors a year during its peak from 1920 to 1970. The Sullivan County of Borscht Belt legend really consists of the eastern part of Sullivan County and a bit of southern Ulster County. Here are the large towns of Liberty, Monticello, and Ellenville and the small towns of Woodbourne, Hasbrouck, South Fallsburg, Livingston Manor, Fallsburg, Loch Sheldrake, Greenfield Park, Mountaindale, Accord, Ulster Heights, Kiamesha Lake, Kerhonkson, Swan Lake, Glen Wild, Hurleyville, Ferndale, White Sulphur Springs, Rock Hill, Parksville, Woodridge, and White Lake. In Sullivan County: Borscht Belt, you will find the lost world of the kuchaleins and bungalow colonies and the hotels, great and small. This was a world to be enjoyed, whether swimming in the Neversink River, watching unmatched entertainment, or eating the legendary Borscht Belt meals. Join us on the lawn, on the handball court, or at the Ping-Pong table. Dive into the pool. Welcome to day camp. All of this and more are here in Sullivan County: Borscht Belt.