The History of Catskill Mountain Resorts
According to the book "It Happened in the Catskills," the Catskill Mountain resorts are a legendary component of Jewish culture in New York. During the peak of their popularity, more than 500 resorts offered a respite from the summer heat in the city along with copious amounts of kosher food and first-rate entertainment.
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Hotels
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Kosher food was abundant at the Catskill resorts. The original lodging properties in the Catskills were small bungalows and cottages, but as the number of visitors grew, so did the size of the hotels. Families came for all-inclusive vacations that offered swimming, tennis, lawn games, dance lessons, arts and crafts, and talent shows. The Catskill resorts were known for their abundance of food served by local college students who, during a good summer, could earn a few thousand dollars toward tuition costs.
Entertainers
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Saturday nights offered big-name entertainment with comedy kings such as Buddy Hackett, Shecky Greene, Milton Berle and Henny Youngman playing the Catskill circuit as a springboard to bigger venues. The resorts began to lose their stature in the 1980s but not before the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and Billy Crystal wowed the dwindling audiences.
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Today
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Las Vegas became a new destination for vacationers who once chose the Catskills. Today, many of the once majestic Catskill resorts are abandoned or have been demolished. Those that remain have been transformed into large modern hotels and conference centers. Two factors started the demise of the historical resorts: air-conditioning and increased assimilation of the Jewish heritage into American culture. According to "The Catskills: A Paradise Lost?," Jewish families followed the new travel trends of exotic destinations such as Disneyworld and Las Vegas.
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- Photo Credit Bagel and Cream Cheese with Lox image by JJAVA from Fotolia.com arc de triomphe image by Géraldine Royer from Fotolia.com
