“On Thursday night champagne hour I would come out and do all these mambos and things. The fictitious Kellermans Mountain House was based on Grossingers Catskill Resort, which stood near the town of Liberty from the Twenties until closing down. “My parents would hit the golf course and I would just go to the dance studio as a little girl,” she said. All of those things would make their way into the film. Bergstein recalled discovering the joy of dance at Grossinger’s while her parents enjoyed the resort’s amenities and socialized at its regular champagne hour. In a 2021 event at the Center for Jewish History, Ms. Air conditioning made the city’s summer heat less oppressive, and the appeal of a forested vacation colony less clear.Įleanor Bergstein, the screenwriter of “Dirty Dancing,” has spoken frequently in interviews of her childhood vacations to Grossinger’s and the impact they had on the film, where Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze have the time of their lives - she as a vacationing teen and he as her dance instructor - at Kellerman’s resort. Waning antisemitism allowed Jews greater access to public accommodations and air travel made faraway vacation sites more accessible to middle-class families. Nine world champion boxers also trained at its athletic facilities, including Rocky Marciano, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the 1950s.īut the borscht belt declined in the second half of the 20th century. Rockefeller was known to vacation there, as was Francis Spellman, who served for three decades as the powerful Roman Catholic archbishop of New York. The actress Elizabeth Taylor and her fourth husband, held a wedding celebration on its grounds in 1959. The resort also had its own post office and a small airfield, which today is also in ruins.Īt its height, Grossinger’s was frequented by several boldfaced names, some of whom were Jewish and some of whom were not. Its amenities included a golf course, a lake, a ski slope, tennis courts, and indoor and outdoor Olympic-size swimming pools.
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