Borscht Belt Tightens in the Catskills : The Times Changed, but the Resorts Didn’t, Leading to the End of an Era in Jewish Life

It’s Monday night in the Borscht Belt, and a freak summer fog hangs over the Catskill Mountains, heavy as a potato pancake.

In the nightclub of the old Granit Hotel, a pooped crowd of senior citizens waits for the King of Shtick to arrive. Suddenly, a four-piece band wakes them up with “Smile Though You’re Heart Is Breaking,” and Mal Z. Lawrence struts on stage like some wise guy at a bar mitzvah.

“Food is a big thing here in the Catskills, isn’t it?” says the balding comedian, rolling into his routine. “People eat like there’s no tomorrow. You check in as a human being and check out as cargo. Bellboy! Checkout time! Put a forklift under the Epsteins!”

Laughter erupts in the largely Jewish crowd, as Lawrence paces back and forth, snapping the microphone cord behind him. Do they want jokes about sex and heartburn? They’ll get, they’ll get.

“We need gambling up here,” he continues. “And oh, what slot machines they would have at this hotel! No cherries, no oranges. Prunes! You get three prunes in a row and then you can go to the crap tables. When you gamble here, they’re going to clean you out one way or another.”

Boom! goes the drum. The audience howls.

“Did you hear about Pia Zadora? She was appearing in the Broadway play, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ and she was so bad that when the Nazis come to the house, the entire audience stood up and yelled: She’s in the attic. “

The curtains close to heavy applause and Lawrence hustles backstage to his tiny dressing room. It’s got a broken chair, a toilet, a cracked mirror and one wire hanger dangling from the wall. Fancy it’s not, but who’s complaining?

“It’s a living,” sighs Lawrence, who has worked the hotels here for 35 years. “It’s just not the kind of living it used to be.”

Once upon a time, the Catskill Mountains region was one of the nation’s most famous summer playgrounds--a Jewish Garden of Eatin’ only 90 miles north of New York City. It was a place where kids could breathe sweet country air and families spent nights together under the stars.

Call it Shangri-La with schmaltz, a land of green hills and shimmering lakes where some of the biggest names in show business got their start. Danny Kaye, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jerry Lewis and Jackie Mason. In the Sour Cream Sierras, they said, a man could let his pants out and laugh.

But now, the Catskills have fallen on times harder than day-old bagels.

The swank hotels that once numbered more than 100 have dwindled to a dozen. Bungalow colonies that once housed thousands are crumbling. Summer camps that kept city kids out of trouble are long gone. Families that once visited the mountains every year now spend their money elsewhere.

As for the entertainers who once graced the marquees up here, don’t ask. Today, most big names work elsewhere.

“Time just passed this area by,” says Stefan Kanfer, a senior editor at Time magazine who wrote “A Summer World,” a social history of the Borscht Belt. “There has never been a domain like it, but tastes change. After awhile, people wanted more from a vacation than 15 kinds of herring and sour cream.”

Beginning in the mid-’60s, Kanfer says, people who made regular trips to the mountains suddenly had more options. For about the same money, couples could fly to Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, Miami and even California.

Meanwhile, in a trend repeated across America, the extended families that once streamed into the Catskills began breaking up. These days, children often live miles from their parents and rarely take long vacations with them.

The last nail in the coffin was the advent of television and affordable home air-conditioning in the mid-1950s. New Yorkers who craved a night out and dreaded the long hot summer no longer needed the mountains.

“It’s enough to make you cry,” says Lawrence, packing his bags after the performance in Kerhonkson. “You know, the world is moving so damn fast.”

Perhaps the most disturbing symbol of decay is the fall of Grossingers, the region’s most luxurious hotel, first opened in 1913. Last month, owners filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, hoping to auction off the deteriorating 600-room estate.

Jennie Grossinger, may she rest in peace, once presided over the hotel like a Jewish grandmother. She ensured there was enough seltzer on the tables and looked the other way when visitors put extra pastries in their purse for the long ride home. It was a family business that grew into an empire.

At its peak, Grossingers was a magnet for celebrities and politicians, a place to see and be seen. Legend has it that Eddie Fisher was discovered there and that the mambo was first introduced to America in the huge ballroom.

But like so many other hotels here, Grossingers failed to keep up with changing times. As competition for tourist dollars increased, the financial burdens became too great and the Grossinger children gave up the business. The decline of their hotel has cast a pall over the region, and old-timers still can’t believe that the once sumptuous grounds are overrun with weeds.

“People up here were shocked when Grossingers finally closed,” says Raymond Drillich, a Holocaust survivor who has been a waiter at the nearby Concord Hotel for 40 years. “The way things are going, I don’t know if this area will continue to be so heavily Jewish for much longer.”

If Drillich is right, and his fears are echoed by other observers, it could mean the end of an era in American and Jewish cultural history. As the old Yiddish saying puts it: Vos is gewehn is gewehn ! (What’s past is past.)

It all began about 1900, when a handful of Jewish farmers who had moved up to the mountains from New York City found it tough to make a living from the region’s rocky soil. They hit on the idea of renting out spare rooms to relatives from the city. Soon, a tourist boom was under way.

At first, the picturesque land was a haven for thousands of Jewish immigrants who wanted to escape the grit and grime of their overcrowded tenements. The mountains offered serenity, green grass and fresh, hearty food at poor man’s prices. Families mingled with their own, spoke Yiddish without fear of harassment and maintained a bit of the Old World in the new.

Soon, more affluent tourists began visiting the area and the face of the Catskills changed forever. In 30 years, the region was covered with large hotels, bungalow colonies and scores of summer camps. The annual tourist count reached more than one million beginning in the late 1930s.

Although some sections of the Catskills catered to Italian-, Greek- and Spanish-speaking guests, the majority of tourist spots were patronized by Jewish visitors. It was common for hotels and bungalows to offer Friday night Sabbath services and special observances for the High Holy Days.

But the new tourists also craved entertainment, and proprietors began hiring scores of comedians and other performers. In the beginning, they had names like Aaron Chwatt, Bernie Schwartz and Murray Janofsky. They later became known as Red Buttons, Tony Curtis and Jan Murray.

In the mountains, entertainment was nonstop. Even the smallest bungalow had its own toomler, or social director, who was in charge of keeping guests happy and organizing activities. A typical week included swimming, hiking, dancing, calisthenics, costume parties and eating. Lots of eating.

Sex and romance was the second most popular activity. Many of the waiters and busboys who worked for the summer in hotels went on to become doctors, lawyers and, in some cases, show-biz celebrities. For some folks, this created a matchmaking opportunity made in heaven. What mother could pass up the chance to introduce her girl to a future surgeon, even though he cleaned silverware every night? What young man on the prowl didn’t dream that he would meet the daughter of a millionaire?

False identities were popular and elaborate courting rituals took place in dining halls. Men and women saved for an entire year to bring two weeks worth of new clothes to the Catskills. And it paid off: Today, there are thousands of couples who met and married in the mountains.

At its height in the 1940s and ‘50s, the region raked in millions of dollars a year from tourism. The mountains had come a long way from the days when poor immigrants traveled up by train and ate simple dinners of borscht, the hearty beet soup which gave the region its name.

But today, it’s a different story. Tourism officials in Sullivan County, the heart of the Catskill region, say it has tremendous potential for economic and residential growth. They concede, however, that the good old days of mostly Jewish hotels and sprawling bungalow colonies are gone forever.

Coming here is still a bargain: Families pay one flat fee for their rooms, three meals a day, athletic activities including golf, tennis and swimming, plus entertainment at night. You should live so long to find a better deal.

Hotel owners, however, are after bigger game. The Concord has actively courted convention business; signs on a recent weekend there welcomed not only Jewish couples but also the directors of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Meanwhile, the Catskills Hotel Assn. has given the Borscht Belt a new name--”CatskilLand”--and its members recently launched a $200,000 television advertising campaign to play down the area’s ethnic image.

Today, some of the hotels that once served kosher food are abandoning that tradition. Menus that were once translated into Hebrew now appear in other languages, like Japanese. That’s because the region’s golf courses attract hundreds of Asian guests, says Milton Kutsher, who runs Kutshers Hotel.

“Fish is fish, and the Japanese tourists enjoy the food up here like anybody else,” he explains. “The time has come when you can’t make it just by catering to the ethnic crowd. Today, you have to broaden your appeal.”

But despite the changes, there are still pockets where the old Catskill spirit survives. In some ways, the region hasn’t changed much at all.

Many of the tourists these days are seniors, who come from as far away as Chicago, Philadelphia and Florida. But there are also groups of young Orthodox families and singles who visit the mountains on special weekends.

Although mainstream entertainers like Tom Jones and Jay Leno dominate Saturday night bookings, visitors can still catch traditional performers like Lawrence. And the Jewish ambience has not disappeared entirely, with hundreds of Hasidic families moving into bungalows once occupied by seniors.

“You can pick up the old feeling if you know where to look for it,” says Howie Pepper, who sold his Jewish record store in Los Angeles 40 years ago and moved to the mountains to try his luck as a comic.

“Some things are still the same, like 50 years ago. Like the eating. My God, the way people eat in the mountains. Essing and fressing (eating and gobbling) all day long. Like they were about to go to the electric chair.”

An hour ago, when dinner was first served at the Concord Hotel, Raymond Frantz attacked the chicken matzo ball soup, polishing off two bowls in nothing flat. That was followed by salad, sour pickles, carrot sticks, black olives, onions, bread, more salad, more bread, and then, more salad.

When they put a steaming plate of beef flanken in front of him, he groaned a little, let out his pants, but kept eating. When they asked him if he wanted another plate, or a different main course, he grunted yes and kept on chewing.

Now, it’s time for dessert, and all eyes at the table are on the 70-year-old man from Brooklyn. Calmly, the waiter asks him if he wants Hungarian apple strudel, coconut candy macaroons, Swiss pineapple roulade or lime fruit ice. Frantz seems offended by the question.

“Put them all down here,” he says.

In the Catskill Mountains, hotel owners still crawl out of their skins to keep people like Frantz happy. He came here for the weekend on a package deal that includes all the food he can eat, and the owners mean it. Their sprawling kitchen serves up to 3,000 kosher meals at one time. Does he want more strudel? Right away! Three more pieces of gefilte fish? No problem!

It’s been that way since the turn of the century. Then as now, people come to the Catskills to eat, but also to laugh. Veteran waiters in the remaining hotels still serve up jokes along with big bowls of cole slaw and fruit. Who needs a nightclub when even the busboy thinks he’s Milton Berle?

Take Sam Freiberg. Please. He’s been waiting tables at the Concord for 25 years. Every night, he pretends to spill coffee on visitors and pulls other gags to keep them laughing. With Sam, there’s no such thing as a simple meal.

But not all the waiters are old-timers. Even though the future doctors and lawyers of America no longer flock to the region for jobs, there are still some bright-eyed kids who are lured by the magic of summer in the mountains.

Richard Wasserman, 19, came all the way from Encino. What’s a nice Jewish boy from the Valley doing in the Concord Hotel? To hear him tell it, the experience has been bizarre but priceless.

“Nothing in life prepares you for the moment when 200 families are screaming for bread on their tables at once,” he says. “Everybody here is eating, or recovering from eating. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

At a nearby table, a daughter is urging her mother to take a walk and work off some excess calories. The two are surrounded by dishes of half-eaten food.

“Come on, Ma, it’ll be good for you,” she says.

“Leave me alone,” the mother answers. “I already get enough exercise walking from my bedroom to the dining room.”

Throughout the meal, public announcements remind guests of upcoming activities, like aerobics with Gilda, dancing lessons with Sol and Sharon and a hair replacement seminar with Ralph Levine.

The last event draws a big crowd outside the dining room. Levine, a paunchy Long Island businessman, is promoting a line of toupees and stands behind a man with an apparently full head of hair. In a booming voice, he tells the audience that he never asks customers if they’re satisfied.

“You know why? I’ll tell you why,” he says, yanking a wig off the bald man’s head and producing audience gasps. “I don’t have to ask him if he likes it. Believe me, he loves it.”

In the Concord’s famous walkway, a Latin dance band keeps couples twirling to the cha-cha until 1 a.m. For singles, there’s a late-hour splash and swim.

But the night’s main event is comedian Sal Richards, a fast-talking Italian comic who has played the mountains for 20 years.

During his routine, he shakes off hecklers and does a mean Tom Jones impression. When someone throws a brassiere at him from the audience, he wraps it across his face and says: “Welcome to General Hospital.”

Richards asks if there are any Italians in the audience, and when a few hands go up, he says: “Why?” The audience breaks up.

The next evening, “Tonight” show host Jay Leno draws a large crowd but doesn’t get quite the same reception. His routine sparkles but has no ethnic jokes. Midway through his set, a few elderly people get up to leave.

It comes as no surprise to Gladys Weisman, who is sunning herself the next morning by the hotel’s sprawling pool. Weisman has been coming to the mountains for years, she wasn’t born yesterday, and she knows what sells.

“Ethnic material is still very big up here, no matter what kind it is,” Weisman says, smearing suntan lotion on her legs. “It’s like when Latin dancing was the big thing here, and the mambo craze was just getting hot.”

Forty years ago, she explains, the mountain hotels tried to outdo each other by signing up famous mambo bands. There were hundreds of Latin musicians working in the area and an equally large contingent of female hotel guests whose husbands worked in the city from Monday through Friday.

“Well, come on, you had all these guys running around the mountains,” says Weisman with a laugh. “Who do you think carried on with them during the week?”

If adults had their own rituals, so did youngsters. For them, the Catskills were mountain lakes, camp fires, basketball games and countless chances to make mischief, free from their parents’ eyes.

Years ago, Richard Evans wrote about a typical day in the mountains for his eighth-grade class in New York City when he got back from vacation. To the best of his recollection, the essay went something like:

“Woke up, had breakfast. Triple portions. Went for a walk. Came back from the walk. Went upstairs and got ready for lunch. Had lunch, triple portions. Took another walk. Went to the pool, took a nap at 3 p.m. Got ready for dinner, had dinner. Triple portions. Took another walk, played bingo, went to sleep. Got up the next day and had breakfast.”

In between naps and walks, Evans, now 40, says he learned all about nature: “I never would have known what a salamander was except for the Catskills. I lived in the city. Who knew from frogs?”

Evans, whose uncle owned one of the biggest hotels in the mountains, the now-defunct Evans Hotel in Loch Sheldrake, last visited the region in 1979. He was depressed to see that extended families like his own were gone.

“It was a world that passed away,” he says. “You once spent summers here with your family, your cousins and your uncles. And now that’s history.”

But not entirely. The old family feeling can still be found just across the road from the Concord Hotel, on a little hill overlooking Lake Kiamesha.

The Har Nof Bungalow Colony used to be called the Krauss Colony, catering to seniors. But these days it is home to 80 Hasidic families from Brooklyn.

Under tall, spreading trees, a swarm of children ride tricycles and chase each other between rows of refurbished white bungalows. Their mothers sit in a cluster of lawn chairs, kibbitzing away the hours and watching them play. Devora Kozlik, a mother of five, explains that most of the husbands work during the week in New York and visit their families on weekends.

“We come out here every July and August for the children, so they’ll have a chance to play in the country and escape the city,” Kozlik says. “It’s also a chance for us to be together, because a lot of us are friends. We can enjoy a peaceful time up here with very little stress.

“We’re part of a continuing tradition,” she says. “There will always be some families that come to the Catskills. You don’t have to look that hard.”

In some cases, tradition is as close as an old chaise lounge.

By the Concord pool, a family that includes Murray and Lenore Weiss, their daughter, Beth, and her husband, Steve Scheuer, and their three children soak up the morning rays. Murray says they’ve been coming every year for 15 years.

“The food is lousy but you get a lot of it,” he jokes. “And where else could I take these three angels and have such fun?” he adds, pointing to his grandchildren.

Asked what her husband does during the day, Beth smiles and says, “He eats, and he eats and he eats some more.” She rubs suntan oil on his belly, which is getting a little soft around the middle, and adds: “He didn’t look this way when he was playing ball years ago.”

Scheuer says she enjoyed her summers here as a girl and hopes her children will come back to the mountains one day with their own families. But she realizes that times are different.

“It’s not that the mountains have changed. It’s me that’s changed. I used to be more athletic, and now I just lay on the lounge. Now, you watch your kids do the things you used to do.”

She gives her husband one last smear of oil and pats his stomach. “The nicest things about this place,” Scheuer says, “are the memories.”