Borscht Belt Bungalows

Borscht Belt Bungalows
Author: Irwin Richman
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2004-02-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781592131907

Every year between 1920 and 1970, almost one million of New York City's Jewish population summered in the Catskills. Hundreds of thousands still do. While much has been written about grand hotels like Grossinger's and the Concord, little has appeared about the more modest bungalow colonies and kuchaleins ("cook for yourself" places) where more than 80 percent of Catskill visitors stayed. These were not glamorous places, and middle-class Jews today remember the colonies with either aversion or fondness. Irwin Richman's narrative, anecdotes, and photos recapture everything from the traffic jams leaving the city to the strategies for sneaking into the casinos of the big hotels. He brings to life the attitudes of the renters and the owners, the differences between the social activities and swimming pools advertised and what people actually received. He reminisces about the changing fashion of the guests and owners—everything that made summers memorable. The author remembers his boyhood: what it was like to spend summers outside the city, swimming in the Neversink, "noodling around," and helping with the bungalow operation, while Grandpa charged the tenants and acted as president of Congregation B'nai Israel of Woodbourne, N.Y. He also traces the changes in the Catskills, including the influx of Hasidic families. Richman talks about what it's like to go back and to see the ghosts of resorts along the roads he once traveled.

Borscht Belt Bungalows

Borscht Belt Bungalows
Author: Irwin Richman
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2010-06-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1439904502

A history memoir and photo album of Jewish summers in the Catskills.

The Borscht Belt

The Borscht Belt
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781501700590

The Borscht Belt, which features essays by Stefan Kanfer and Jenna Weissman Joselit, presents Marisa Scheinfeld's photographs of abandoned sites where resorts, hotels, and bungalow colonies once boomed in the Catskill Mountain region of upstate New York.

Bungalow Kid

Bungalow Kid
Author: Philip Ratzer
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 143843300X

Vividly and lovingly recreates a city kid's summer in the Catskills in the 1950s.

Catskill Culture

Catskill Culture
Author: Phil Brown
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2003-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781592131891

A rich ethnographical study, drawing on the memories of guests, staff, and entertainers, chronicles the development of the Jewish Catskill resorts, discussing their impact on both American and immigrant Jewish culture and tracing their slow decline since the 1970s. UP.

Growing Up at Grossinger's

Growing Up at Grossinger's
Author: Tania Grossinger
Publisher: Skyhorse
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2008-06-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1626369607

"To be devoured in one non-stop gulp...fascinating reading."—The New York Post From 1919 to 1986, Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel provided a summer retreat from the city heat for New York's Jews, and entertained the great, the near-great, and the not so great, Jews and Gentiles alike. A melting pot of the Borscht Belt, sports, and show-biz worlds, loyal visitors included Red Buttons, Rocky Marciano, Eddie Fisher, and Jackie Robinson. Tania Grossinger grew up there. In her fascinating insider's account of life in the hospitality industry, she sheds light on how hotel children keep up with the frenetic pace of life, and how they come to grips with the outside world (which intrudes now and again), sex (happening in every room), and, occasionally, their intellectual interests. Growing Up at Grossinger's is both a wonderful coming-of-age story and a sentimental reading of a chapter of the Jewish experience in America that has now closed. 25 b/w photographs. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Catskill Resorts

Catskill Resorts
Author: Ross Padluck
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780764343179

Once the most famed resort destination of the world, the Catskills, New York's bygone Borscht Belt district, helped shape American culture and history. Through 363 images, take a trip back in time to relive the stories behind the theaters and nightclubs, the lavish lobbies where bellhops welcomed celebrities, and the vacuous dining rooms that served thousands of rich kosher meals each day.

Mahjong

Mahjong
Author: Annelise Heinz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2021-04-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190081813

How has a game brought together Americans and defined separate ethnic communities? This book tells the first history of mahjong and its meaning in American culture. Click-click-click. The sound of mahjong tiles connects American expatriates in Shanghai, Jazz Age white Americans, urban Chinese Americans in the 1930s, incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime, Jewish American suburban mothers, and Air Force officers' wives in the postwar era. Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women's culture. As it traveled from China to the United States and caught on with Hollywood starlets, high society, middle-class housewives, and immigrants alike, mahjong became a quintessentially American game. Heinz also reveals the ways in which women leveraged a game to gain access to respectable leisure. The result was the forging of friendships that lasted decades and the creation of organizations that raised funds for the war effort and philanthropy. No other game has signified both belonging and standing apart in American culture. Drawing on photographs, advertising, popular media, and dozens of oral histories, Heinz's rich and colorful account offers the first history of the wildly popular game of mahjong.

Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber

Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber
Author: Allen J. Frishman
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2016-06-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781523632176

Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber is a humorous telling of the great times the baby boomer generation had growing up in "The Country". This was the period of Jewish exodus from city heat to country cool-air. Ruby the Knish Man, the Hippie Rabbi, Louie Slamowitz, and Benny and the Schleps are some of the interesting characters you'll meet in the book. Included are stories about Jewish Lightning, a rare Catskill phenomenon, Mendel's Mansion, and of course the Woodstock Festival. My family worked hard in many bungalow colonies getting the water moving again after the long cold winters. One thing we always made a point of was to laugh at it all which helped us get through those exhausting times. You'll read about this in tales such as "One Strange Collection" and "Come Closer, Closer Still". At night, I donned my rock and roll persona and performed with my band in some of the major hotels like The Pines, Kutchers, The Concord, and colonies such as Clearview Country Club and Fiakloffs. The band's adventures led us to psychedelic displays, and for some the discovery of chopped liver. The book contains a plumbers instruction manual that will guide you through the glory days of the Borscht belt, but in no way will it help you to become a plumber. Also included is an easy to read schematic that translates the Yiddish words helping you to get the full essence of the stories. Throughout the book are some special tips that I'll be sharing with you. Consider these an extra bonus that will make your life just a little easier. You'll wish you had these years ago. "How We Got Here" speaks of my family's coming to the Land of Milk and Honey, and "A New Beginning" spells out the future of the Catskills. If you're a health nut, don't worry. Everything was written without artificial sweeteners, but to give it some extra flavor I added a little "gribines". (Use the schematic, remember)? The book did take about 13 years to complete, but just like a good "chulent" that cooks and cooks, getting better with time, so did the book. It's finally time to eat, so wash your hands and come to the table. Remember, you don't have to eat it all at once, but make sure if you do that the plumbing works! Enjoy "kinderla" enjoy!