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All the United States New York State New York City Liberty Ruins of Grossinger's Resort
Ruins of Grossinger's Resort is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

AO Edited

Ruins of Grossinger's Resort

This once luxurious Catskills resort is now a haunting ruin.

Liberty, New York

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Luke Spencer
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The indoor pool.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Outdoor pool.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Changing room for the ice rink.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
An old receipt.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The indoor pool has become a living greenhouse.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Outdoor pool.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
  Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Inside one of the hotels.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
A hotel room.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Bathroom in one of the hotel rooms.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The golf pro club house.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
The outdoor ice rink.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
Changing room for the ice rink.   Luke J Spencer / Atlas Obscura User
  Antahny / Atlas Obscura User
  Antahny / Atlas Obscura User
  Antahny / Atlas Obscura User
  dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
Indoor pool   dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
  dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
Hallway   dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
Indoor pool   dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
Indoor pool   dkphotology / Atlas Obscura User
Rooftop view   jmexplorations18 / Atlas Obscura User
Grand Staircase   jmexplorations18 / Atlas Obscura User
This place is a dive....   jmexplorations18 / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Until cheaper airfares made trips from New York to Miami more commonplace, the height of a luxury summer vacation for affluent New Yorkers in the 1950s was to head up into the Catskills to one of the many holiday resorts.

Nicknamed the Borscht Belt, the jewel among the many competing vacation venues was the Grossinger's Resort. Set in the hills around the small town of Liberty, New York, a review for the Commentary magazine in 1954, described Grossinger's as "to resort hotels as Bergdorf Goodman is to department stores, Cadillac to cars, mink to furs, and Tiffany to jewelers ... it has been called Waldorf in the Catskills."

For decades, Grossinger's was a by word in luxury. Over 150,000 people visited every year, entertained by the likes of Eddie Fisher, Jerry Lewis, and Milton Berle in the opulent nightclubs. The facilities were so state of the art (it was the first resort in the U.S. to offer artificial snow for year-round ski runs) that Rocky Marciano used it as his training camp. The resort became the inspiration for Dirty Dancing. 

Grossinger's started as a small family-run hotel in 1917 owned by Austrian immigrants Asher and Malke Grossinger. But it was under their daughter Jennie Grossinger that the resort boomed. It soon spread to over 35 buildings covering 1,200 acres including its own private airfield. The main building contained an enormous dining room capable of seating 1,300 guests; under the dining room there was a vast, cavernous night club called the “Terrace Room." The resort was so prestigious that Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were married there. After Jennie died in 1972, the resort started to fall into decline. With guests choosing to fly elsewhere for the summer, the hotel closed it's doors for the last time in 1986.

Since then it has been left to gradually fall into ruin. The Commentary magazine review noted that "the feeling one gets everywhere ... is of pleasantly solid permanence." But like Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu, the pleasure palace of the 1950s has gently been reclaimed by the forests of the Catskills. The outdoor tennis courts and swimming pools lie abandoned. The ice rink, hotel rooms, and golf pro's clubhouses are covered in moss and ivy. The indoor swimming pool has turned into a living greenhouse. Where once guests in the high spirits of summer vacations dove off the high board, dined, and danced the night away, there is now only the silence.

Update September 2018: Sadly, this abandoned borscht belt resort is being razed to make way for new development opportunities in Liberty, New York.

 

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The resort has been demolished.

Community Contributors

Added By

Luke J Spencer

Edited By

julnyes, MagnumPI, Miscellaneous Juice, Babs81...

  • julnyes
  • MagnumPI
  • Miscellaneous Juice
  • Babs81
  • Just Someone
  • dkphotology
  • jmexplorations18
  • Antahny

Published

August 24, 2013

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Sources
  • http://gothamist.com/2014/01/10/abandoned_ny_grossingers_catskill.php
  • https://www.recordonline.com/article/20110324/news/103240338#:~:text=She%20was%20without%20question%20one,his%20marriage%20to%20Debbie%20Reynolds
Ruins of Grossinger's Resort
Grossinger Golf Course
Liberty, New York, 12754
United States
41.790049, -74.727908
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