The Borscht Belt: Online Articles
A compilation of resources to help you find information on the Borscht Belt.
NPR
- Beyond The Borscht Belt"Bob Skinner is an architectural photographer by trade who photographs multimillion-dollar properties around New York. He doesn't often photograph people for his commercial work, but..."
Newsweek
- Photographing the End of the Borscht Belt in the Catskills
"Had photographer Marisa Scheinfeld, 33, been born a few decades earlier, she would have grown up in the heart of America’s quintessential vacationland rather than its modern-day ruins. When Scheinfeld was 6 years old, her family left New York City to move upstate..."
New York Times
- Punch Lines, Reverberating in the Ruins
"Some 20 years ago, whenever the self-styled King of Simon Says (a.k.a. Allan Tresser) performed in the Catskills, he would display a pasteboard panel boasting of his television credits: As seen on “The Jack Paar Show”! And “Wonderama”! And ... well, I forget the rest, but not the idea..."
Daily Mail
- They've had the time of their lives!
"They've had the time of their lives! The ghostly remains of abandoned resorts that were once glitzy Upstate New York hotels (and the setting for Dirty Dancing)."
Hudson Valley Magazine
- History of Borscht Belt Hotels and Bungalow Colonies in the Catskills
"As geography, the Catskills are a mountainous region of southeastern New York State. As synecdoche, they are a now-vanished way of life. For your parents and grandparents, the Catskills from the 1920s through the 1970s was the Borscht Belt, the Jewish Alps, “Solomon” County, the summer place to be if you were Jewish..."
The Jewish Daily Forward
- My Journey to Borscht Belt Ruins
"When I set out to write a story on the Catskills — its famed legacy, its tremendous decline and what the future holds — I knew I wanted to spend a couple of days upstate, talking with locals who witnessed the area in its heyday and seeing what’s left of it for myself..." - The Not-So-Dirty 'Dirty Dancing' Story
"n the mid-1980s, Eleanor Bergstein returned to Grossinger’s Resort in the Catskills, where she had vacationed as a child during its heyday, to research her screenplay for “Dirty Dancing.” One night, she got a call from Hollywood..."