7. Abandoned Borscht Belt Resorts

Indoor pool, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort and Hotel, Liberty New York. Photo by Marisa Scheinfeld from The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland.

The Catkills was the home to the “Borscht Belt,” the summer resorts that the Tri-State area Jewish community would decamp to, made famous by the film Dirty Dancing and more recently, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. With changing travel patterns, the Borscht Belt resorts closed and became abandoned but many can still be explored today. The closest grouping of resorts on your way up to the Phoenicia area of the Catskills are the resorts that were in the Ellenville, Spring Glen and Greenfield Park area.

Ellenville is an under-40 minute detour off the New York State Thruway (I-87), from which it’s less than an hour up to the Emerson Resort & Spa. Check out these ten abandoned resorts from the Borscht Belt!