Colleen Kane

Abandoned Borscht Belt 3: The Pines

2012-01-09T22:32:22-06:00

Last October, I explored the abandoned site of The Pines resort in South Fallsburg, New York.

(Image via this wonderful collection of vintage resort postcards)

The Pines had 400 guest rooms, a golf course, tennis courts, a ski chalet, an ice rink, and two swimming pools. Its theater and nightclub hosted the usual Jewish Alps entertainers of the day such as Robert Goulet and Buddy Hackett. It closed in 1998 when a developer bought the property from the Ehrlich family. This article details the bankruptcy of that developer and possible future for the property.

The postcard above shows what The Pines looked like in the 1960s. As you might imagine, it doesn't look like this bright and tidy any more.

(This post covers the second day of a great weekend of Catskills exploration back in October. If you missed previous installments in my Abandoned Borscht Belt series, they are here: Part 1 and Part 2, and remember you can always click on the photos to enlarge them.)

We parked by the entrance to the resort's old ski chalet, then found a path leading through woods and tall grass to the resort.

And there she was.

The path we were on brought us to the old golf clubhouse first.

It was a cool midcentury building with an angled roof line, but is now windowless on the side facing out to the golf course.

The two-level affair was comprised of locker rooms and a pro shop, with strewn-about skis and ski boots, the odd golf bag or pair of kleats, and a burst-open box of plastic leis.

The next building we came to was guest lodging, the two-story Regency. The hallway wasn't doing so well.

The carpeting and wallpaper scheme was a ruined symphony of 1970s avocado tones.

This stairwell was faring even worse than the hall. The ladder placement indicates some wacko ventured down below these broken stairs on purpose.

Yet, some of the guest rooms remain remarkably intact, even in the same building where you see that extensive damage.

Those extra pieces of carpeting you see on the floor were (rightfully) torn from the walls, where for some reason I do not understand, they were put up to hide this magnificent wallpaper. I don't think I will ever approve of any final decor updates that any of these resorts made before they closed.

There were two such ornamented areas in this room and two more in the adjoining room, presumably where the beds used to go. Pictured above, I am calling the front desk to see about where I might order the wallpaper.

Moving on deeper into the complex, one ground-floor trash-filled room we saw through a window had a hand-lettered sign hanging from the ceiling reading "Keep everything 2 ft from ceiling Board of Health" I'm pretty sure the Board of Health is a little more formal with their advisories, but it's probably wise to keep 2 ft away from everything anyway.

Here is the Savoy wing. You can see through the windows that the roof has collapsed in this section and the upper floors have fallen in down to the second floor.

This is the view through the air conditioner hole to a room on the first floor of the Savoy wing. That's a mirrored wall directly across.

Turning to the left, a notice for would-be parking rule violators.

And facing down toward the main entrance, you could take this driveway down to the road, passing under the Essex building dead ahead.

From this central location, there were many directions to go, so our group of seven split up, which is always a wise move when you are exploring a dangerous and scary unfamiliar place.

Leah, Kennedy and I entered the main building through the rear door, passing first through the trashed dining room.

This large open area had hosted a massive paintball fight, as indicated by the round splatters dotting the walls, windows, and furniture.

The dining room flowed into the upper lobby, which had grown a carpet of moss.

Is check-in causing too long of a pause between cocktails? Have yourself a highball, mister.

Down the windowed and paintball-splattered hallway, we came to where the indoor pool used to be.

(Vintage postcard via this fascinating website dedicated to The Pines)

Now it looks like this.

Next, a venture down to the lower lobby, where the guests checked in.

My camera memory filled up around here and I had to use Leah's, but I don't seem to have a good photo of the reception area. But yeah...not doing well.

The paint was curling off the walls. It almost looked like extreme heat burned it off, but it's probably just moisture damage.

Behind a counter, one whole wall of key cubbies still had nearly all the room keys in them.

Further back behind the reception area were some really dark, wet, and frightening offices containing filing cabinets, zombies, desks, ghouls, rolls of adding machine paper, various demons, some old stationery, and handy photocopied maps of the grounds (in case you've been wondering how I know the building names).

We crossed the underpass area where cars would've entered the complex to drop off the family before heading off to parking. A word of warning: there is now a hole in that central green patch where there was formerly a manhole cover.

Over on the other side of reception was Ascot Hall.

After a quick look at another guest wing, we reunited with the rest of the group by the outdoor pool. To get there, we had to traverse the remains of the Persian Room, the Wedgewood Room, the Viceroy Room, and the coffee shop.

The kidney-shaped pool with the charming little footbridge had quite a festive look back in the day.

(via)

But now it looks like this.

(Photo: Kennedy Candra)

Above: same view as postcard looking toward cabanas, and below: looking back toward the main building.

The pool is going pond, growing cattails and everything.

The pool cabanas are still standing , as is the conference center. The ice rink has been demolished, and the greenhouse is overgrown.

Behind the pool cabanas are some older-looking lodging buildings (I'm guessing staff quarters) named the Dorchester, the Sheraton, and two others, joined by a breezeway that once led all the way through the pool structure and into the main building. We didn't go more than a few steps in, very conscious of the light draining from the afternoon.

We finally had our flashlights after initially leaving them back in the car, so we went for a last swing through a pitch-dark hall in the lower lobby that had some shops, including the beauty shop, barber shop, and an arcade, lit only by a few flashlights.

The thick, wet, mildewy, moldy air made me want to turn back right away. I thought, "Why do I put myself in these situations?" No, really-- why was I traversing a rotting building, subjecting my lungs to this, while other people were spending their weekends doing normal things with their families?

I felt the first panicky flickers of claustrophobia. I wanted out, but not enough to go by myself in the dark. I was D-O-N-E for the day, and fortunately after a few minutes, so was the rest of the gang, although I still feel like there's lots more to see there.

We hightailed it to Liberty and threw down what I'm just going to declare the most authentic Mexican food in the Catskills (someone prove me wrong, I'd be happy to know of more places).

I love discovering these ruins, getting scared and laughing and feeling nostalgic for a lost time I didn't live through and people I didn't know. These places are part of the story of so many lives. Just as one example, for a couple named Sandy and Stanley, the Pines was a stopover when they returned from a trip to Expo 67. (That online tribute Stanley made about his wife and their shared life together is one of the more touching sites I've ever seen on the Internet.)

I very much plan for Leah and I to continue exploring in 2012. If anyone has connections, invitations, or location suggestions, or perhaps even a publisher would like this professional writer to write up something more substantive on these places, don't hesitate to comment or get in touch.

Abandoned Borscht Belt 2: Mohonk Mountain House and Tamarack Lodge

2011-10-31T13:13:43-05:00

Earlier this month, Leah and I continued our exploration of the former Jewish Alps (part 1 is here). We spent the weekend with a great group of hosts (who fast became new pals) in the town of Rosendale, which I found positively charming (and just now realized I'd read about before in the Times).

Leah and I began on Saturday with the still-in-business Mohonk Mountain House, which is often cited as the inspiration for The Shining. It was also seen in No Reservations, in the episode when Tony went up the Hudson. The enormous lodge's hodgepodge of structural styles made a much more dramatic impression in person than it did on the show.

It costs $25 just for a day pass to hike on their grounds for the day and then "not be permitted inside the hotel." (You can totally go inside the hotel.) Inside it has a very old-school feel with dark wood paneling, fireplaces and old fixtures galore.

After hiking up to the high point for panoramic views of the New Paltz region, then grabbing coffee and hiking the trails back down to the car it was already a full day, but we still had a night of ghost hunting ahead.

We made a resolution to return for a stay at the Mountain House.

Back in Rosendale, we wanted to nap but there was no time. Eddie, pictured below center, had arranged for us to tour the Tamarack Lodge at night with a clairvoyant Native American woman who lived on the property, who he met when he was last exploring there. This story was a little too much to take. We couldn't believe the night's plan, which was certain to be a horror movie in the making.

We arrived at the Tamarack at dusk, as the wind kicked up and we each donned as many layers as we had with us. We met our hostess, who was the most blue-eyed Native American I'd ever seen. Her father has a Native American museum on the property in a new building. Our party already numbered 10 when we arrived and were 16 by the time our hostess' kids and their friends joined the gang.

After entering through the main entrance (above), we started in the pool room, which is seen from the exterior in the dusk shot above. Here's the ceiling:

Per abandoned resort tradition, all lounges had been tossed into the pool.

Our hostess decided we would all go in the pool as well and use the Ouija board to contact the unsettled spirits of the hotel.

As someone who feels Ouija boards are not to be messed with, particularly in dark abandoned buildings that we're being told are haunted, I was pretty solidly not on board with this plan. But we were here for a ghost hunt, so everybody into the pool.

We stood in the pool in the complete darkness and tried contacting the two spirits just by asking them to appear. Blessedly, none did.

"Is anybody with us tonight?"

[giant gust of wind]

And so on.

Once the Ouija came out (they glow in the dark now once you juice them up with a flashlight), everyone sat cross legged around it. Everyone, that is, except Leah and I, and the one gal who stood apart from everyone the whole night not saying anything and staring into the darkness. This was the only time I have ever actually stood still embracing a friend in utter terror. You know someone's a good friend when you can do that. We both suspected the solitary woman of being posessed. Hey, anything seems possible when you are standing in the pitch black in an abandoned resort that someone told you is haunted and you have also consumed a lot of horror stories throughout life.

I wondered for the first time that weekend but not for the last: Why I do this to myself?

Possible paranormal event no. 1: Myself and three other women all standing in the same area of the pool got cold--Chilled to the bone. It was a cold night to begin with, true enough, and there was a hole in the zig-zagged roof. But we'd all bundled up. I had on a wool turtleneck with a heavy duty wool Pendleton button- down shirt. I'm not sure the deep chill the four of us felt then was from the weather.

After approximately one eternity of no response from the Great Beyond other than a few far-off taps that could be anything--long enough that I relaxed enough to start joking about the no-show ghosts a bit with Leah--we were allowed to leave the pool room.

On the way out of the pool room we examined the rubble with our camera flashes.

What's the creepiest thing about the above photo? The sign or the nearby smooshed baby shoe? No, it is obviously the zombie toe-footed footgear. Anyone who wears these will automatically be the creepiest in their area.

Also found in my photos in the rubble are a yellow plastic souvenir drink bottle imprinted in green with "Everything You Expect from a Premiere Catskill Resort," a record player, graffiti stencils, a white artificial Christmas tree, a wooden stretcher, and possibly a small bloodstain.

I believe the above used to be hot tubs but were filled with dirt and woodchips to be used as planters in later years.

We moved on to a large performance space with a stage on one end and a teepee in the center. A pow-wow had been held here recently, we were told.

The room also had a DJ booth.

My favorite part of the evening took place here when one of our group gave a haunting solo concert on the musical saw in the dark. Then it became saw-playing lessons for the kids.

Elsewhere, up in one of the hotel rooms, we found a stash of Muscle and Fitness magazines and posters, CDs (Crash Test Dummies and some nu-metal band), and a crossbow training video VHS tape (sealed). Mounted on the wall was a large mirror for flexing. Because where do you go for your secret cultivation of and admiration of muscles and fitness? You go to the abandoned Tamarack Lodge, which at one time was "Everything You Expect from a Premiere Catskill Resort."

And then we went to the attic, which felt like the opposite of something we should be doing.

The lights went out, with the solitary girl situated at the far end of the attic by herself (again: why do I do this to myself?!). Soon our party was joined by yet another member, a guy we were told normally has all the EVP (elecronic voice phenomenon) and other ghost-hunting equipment, though he didn't have it with him tonight. He did come bearing his divining pendulum that he takes with him wherever he goes.

It was a pointed crystal on a chain that in conjunction with unknown disembodied entities can answer yes or no questions.

"Is someone here?" Yes, swung the pendulum.

"Do you want us to leave?" Yes.

"OK! Let's go!" I said, but we still had to stay.

Later he handed the pendulum to me to try.

Possible paranormal event no. 2: As alluded earlier, I believe in Ouija boards. I'm sure that they're often used for fakery, but I'm also just as sure that back in my preteen occult experimentation stage, I felt the planchette move when I was touching it as lightly as I possibly can and that the other person wasn't moving it either. Using that pendulum for divination felt like the same effect as the Ouija. It moved, and I was not the force moving it. It moved in front-back or side-side arcs or roundabout spiral identical to the way it did with the other guy.

We went outside to the area behind the main building, and the moon cooperated in setting the mood.

First stop, a decrepit building called The Westchester.

We didn't go far in.

Below is the only photo from the night I consider odd. I took plenty of pictures containing orbs, and numerous photos with so many orbs they looked like snow flurries. That was just dust being kicked up by all the people walking around. But why the below photo (the same view as the shot above) turned out blue, that I cannot explain.

There could be an easy explanation, but I don't know it.

Below is a view inside one of the breezeway shelters between the buildings that enabled guests and staff to travel between the buildings without getting rained on.

Finally, we arrived at The Essex, the building haunted by a demon, our hostess warned.

I was pretty good on the scares by that point and did not need to go in. However, everybody else was doing it, which is always a good reason to go along with a plan you don't like. Inside it felt extremely oppressive and just looked like another trashed lodging building. I would say the demon was more of the rotting materials/ damaging airborne particles variety than anything paranormal. It didn't feel haunted, it felt like "lets get out of here before we destroy our lungs." I was glad when we all made a quick exit.

But not without noticing this steel cart and thinking how much it would go for at the industrial antiques shoppe in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.

In all, we were on the grounds for five hours and were extremely grateful to our gracious hostess for the rare and dangerous opportunity: free reign to explore condemned buildings in the dark. It was exhausting. We still planned a daytime visit to another abandoned resort the next day, but that will be detailed in the next post, coming soon.

Busy as a Brooklyn Bound B

2011-09-11T21:53:22-05:00

Someone has been working by night in my neighborhood putting up words on what was until recently just an unsightly parking deck.

Today is an anniversary of an infamous day, but I've reached saturation point on that subject (and yet still keep watching the documentaries, and then having to turn the channel away to something cleansing and dopey like It's a Mad, Mad Mad Mad World).

I was reminded today that (almost) everyone alive is fortunate to be here. And when I walk to the subway in the morning, I pass at the building seen in the above right foreground, the NYC Job Center, a line of grim faces and momentarily feel lucky to be going to a job, however much I may not have wanted to deal until then. But a different reason to stop and assess appeared in my morning walk to the subway recently.

Up on the parking garage across from the Downtown Brooklyn Macy's it says: BORN BUSY AS A BROOKLYN BOUND B / I AM MADE TO LEAVE I AM MADE TO RETURN / I WAS NURTURED HERE.

I stopped to think about this, still pre-coffee. No one was noticing what to me was quite noticable. Even when only the first words were visible in white without their black contrast layer, this project had already improved an eyesore.

Each day since since, I've watched new lines or lyrics appear. The Livingston Street face of the deck got its own lyrics, plus a guy on the corner of the structure.

I am especially enjoying how much less of my mind is now used for thinking about how hideous that Fulton Closeout Center banner is, and how much more of it is now thinking about the words and who might have written them and put them up there and so on.

And the words are still spreading onto other contiguous areas, including inter-building walkways over Hoyt street: a slow reveal of rhymes.

Today the artists of this installment were out working in daylight, and passerby were finally stopping to take notice. People previously concerned with Zales or queuing up for the debut of a new sneaker at Foot Locker:

Now they're thinking about poetry.

Success!

Right, creators of this mysterious installation?

Walking through this Fulton Mall area, it seems everything is changing, with blue wood panels around construction areas. This building, the former Martin's department store, is being turned into condos.

Next to it, behind more blue board, is a hole where an H&M will rise. The site of the former Albee Square Mall has given rise to the future "first class retail" of City Point.

For now, businesses here are mall and discount stores. But I still notice remnants of the previous, rather more grand version of this shopping district, like the top of the old J.W. May's discount department store. (True, it was discount, but still probably nicer than say the mayhem of modern Conway.)

Or this ghost sign on a brick wall for a grander era of parking: Majestic Parking, offering permanent or "transient" spots for your motor-coach.

I'm reminded that New York is never finished. It's an ongoing work. It can look messy and non-uniform. We're shedding off some old skins, and editing out what doesn't work, and trying on new things.

So this unexpected art project is kind of making me love my neighborhood right now. I now start each weekday walking beneath the word EUPHORIA. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be sponsored by Pepsi™©.

The First Cut is the Creepest: Revisiting the Childhood Trauma of the Original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

2011-08-26T10:56:34-05:00

No single film has affected my life more than a humble made-for-TV movie from 1973 called Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which served as the scary movie deflowering of many impressionable young minds of Generation X. It seemed to run at least one Saturday afternoon every month of the 1980s on WPIX channel 11. Whenever it did, my older brother and I sat transfixed on the basement’s loop pile carpet (in three tones of brown), filled with dread.

Spoiler alert--but if you didn’t watch this movie as a child, it’s already spoiled.

The story goes like this: the neurotic Sally and her dapper polyester-besuited husband move into a huge house they inherited. They dismiss the warnings of the cranky old handyman to stay away from the room that’s locked and boarded up, because Sally is hell-bent on turning the space into a study.

Too bad there are demonic creatures sealed up in the fireplace! Sally breaks the seal, sealing her fate. The presence of these small creatures is at first only indicated by their green collective aura and their fiendish whispers.

Then we see more of their shriveled alien-like heads and their furry bodies (at a height around the Smurfs’ “three apples high”), as they lumber towards our increasingly agitated heroine whenever it’s dark, hissing and moaning, “Saaally! We want you!” Only light scatters them away.

The creatures kill the interior decorator before he can bring any sassy levity to her troubled existence or make this movie look any more like the 1970s. Finally when her husband leaves for a business trip, the demons dope Sally with her sleeping pills, cut the electricity, and begin dragging her down the stairs toward the fireplace. She feebly resists, and she’s able to call and alert her husband and temporarily fend them off with a camera flash, but she’s too weak to prevail.

The husband returns to the house just moments too late. The last scene is an interior shot from the seemingly bottomless fireplace, as he leans in with his flashlight.

“SALLYYYY!”

[flashlight drops into abyss]

And then the whispering voices arise, with Sally’s voice now among them, as one of them!

My brother and I absorbed this conclusion with saucer eyes, innocent minds warped.

I didn’t notice that the creatures were low budget, and to see them now looking like stuffed animal puppets with shrunken heads is laughable. Then, it was terrifying. I became afraid of the dark. It was not severe enough that I needed a night light or a “feelings doctor,” but after turning off the light switch by my bedroom door, I always leaped onto my bed from a few feet away, so that nothing could grab me from beneath, and then I couldn’t ever let an arm or leg dangle over the edge. Those creatures were down there, waiting to drag me down to the basement and into the furnace.

But more than just giving shape to what might be lurking under my bed, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was the first example of an adult who made a mistake and couldn’t defend herself from the dreadful consequences. Until then, I hadn’t seen many, if any, movies that didn’t have a happy ending. There wasn’t much in my suburban existence to indicate that sometimes things will really not be OK. The closest I’d probably gotten to depressing grownup realities were country songs or the end of The Hulk TV show when Bill Bixby walks away with the Lonely Man theme playing.

I own a VHS copy of DBAOTD, a relic from when they were packaged in the oversize boxes, scored from a Blockbuster clearance bin. As a bonus, the tape includes trailers for multiple ’70s B-flicks, each involving death by swarms of critters: ANTS! SNAKES! Killer Bees! It was part of my “getting to know you” process that with a boyfriend that I would eventually dust off this tape and introduce him to this influential film, so that he might understand the reference, though not the terror it instilled. When I first met my husband, it was a very good sign that when Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark came up in conversation, he knew what I was talking about.

I’m not the only one so affected by DBAOTD. Due largely to its repeated afternoon TV air times, the movie made an indelible impact on a lot of kids. Around 150 user reviews on IMDB.com written by viewers now in their 30s and 40s indicate the legacy this little movie left on their impressionable minds of yore. These tributes have headings titled “Childhood Trauma-Inducer,” “serious childhood trauma spilling over into adulthood,” “messed with my mind as a kid,” and “messed me up but good.” You won’t have to look far to spot the phrase “psychologically scarred,” and like me, many of these people also report thinking that the creatures lived under their beds or in their fireplaces or in their basements.

The writer and producer of the movie’s new remake, Guillermo del Toro, had the same experience. "It was something close to my heart for a very long time," he told USA Today. "My brothers and I would pursue each other in the house, saying, 'Sally, Sally'. We thought the movie was the most terrifying on Earth, and I want to honor what worked so well in that film."

As I grew older, I’d still haul ass up the basement stairs if my brother turned the light off when I was only halfway up, but those early fears of the dark were supplanted by the 80s horror fodder I watched at slumber parties--typically slasher stuff that was either scary in a more startling, less haunting way, or just gory. It took a very long time to realize that I was in a lifelong setup for disappointment with the scary movie genre. For every Nightmare on Elm Street, there was a Nightmare on Elm Street parts 2, 3, and 4, and a remake of the original.

I still relish a good frightening movie as an adult, when one can be found amid the gore: The Blair Witch Project, The Ring, that hand-eye creep in Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, and though it wasn’t a horror film, the party scene with Robert Blake in Lost Highway. I doubt these would be as scary if I watched them again now. As with comedy, horror often doesn’t stand up over time. It depends on the viewer and what they’ve seen before.

But as an adolescent and then adult, the films that chilled to the core, the ones that flashed to mind in the dark or as I fumbled with my key in the door coming home at 1 a.m. (because oh Jesus if I turn around, Candyman will be calmly standing there!), those movies are few. And after DBAOTD, nothing could ever affect me in the same way, just like with Sally, nothing was the same once she unsealed that fireplace.

I Sent More Coo-Coo Mail to Sierra Club

2011-07-23T20:07:09-05:00

Perhaps you recall my ongoing correspondence with the Sierra Club. Perhaps additionally, as a probable resident of the United States, you are aware of the heat wave going on. Well! If you would like to know what happens when your hostess receives correspondence from her favorite extravagant envelope-stuffers while crazy from the heat, read on!

So, I got another mailing from the Sierra Club.

They're making some promises.

Oh wooowww, a cheap bag nobody needs that will end up in the landfill? Thanks, Sierra Club! What a boon to our toubled environment!

Last time I wrote to them I promised that I would step it up each time they continued sending me thick envelopes of wasted paper and vinyl. I would keep returning parcels to them, on their own dime, using this handy self-addressed postage-paid envelope.

Only now, I will start adding continually heavier items to the packages I send back to Sierra Club. Sierra Club likes to send a bunch of useless crap to everybody, such as multipe vinyl calendars and decals per year, and I figured, "I've got a bunch of useless crap," so.

First, a flour sifter. I have two others, and I never sift flour. So, here you go, Sierra Club! Make a cake or something!

I also had this trivet, which is broken. Sierra Club, you care about the environment, make this into something useful!

Finally, this vintage Tupperware lid. Sierra Club, this lid will fit on any number of vintage Tupperware cylindrical vessels, commonly found in orange, avocado, and goldenrod. Enjoy!

I topped the items in the parcel with the vinyl sticker and calendar strip, cushioning them with the shredded wall map and the other paper materials that came in the latest Sierra Club mailing, because I care about the environment.

I shipped it all in a reused Priority Mail box, wrapped it in repurposed paper bags from the local market, becuase I am ecological like that, Sierra Club.

Here is the correspondence I included in the package.

And here is the package.

You are welcome, planet Earth.

Abandoned Borscht Belt: Grossinger's Resort and a Schmear of Kutcher's

2011-06-12T19:34:56-05:00

I've been back in Brooklyn for a year now. While still living in Baton Rouge, I began researching Kutcher's resort. It's the last operational resort in the Catskills' Borscht Belt, and I was pitching a story about it (no one bit, and I'm still very interested in writing this and similar). From there, I found a wealth of information and photos online covering numerous abandoned resorts in the region. I envied the people who could explore those places and dreamed of doing it myself. Well my dear friends and readers, that dream came true last weekend.

Leah, her German Shorthaired Pointer, Otto, and I set off Friday night to Parksville, NY, settling at a campground occupied by 85% seasonal campers from Long Island who tool around the property on golf carts (I caught a ride with one such fellow named Louie, who decorated the front of his cart in gold and black mailbox letters reading B DA BING BADA BOOM). For the first time, camping wasn't just about sitting around the fire BS-ing and telling funny stories. It was like the night before Christmas, with thoughts on tomorrow's exploration of ruins.

The first stop Saturday was the nearby old time downtown of Liberty where we threw down some Mexcellent food (friend me on Yelp!), and then we were off on the mission.

The next stop was less certain, no thanks to my nonexistent iPhone service from AT&T (one of these days I'll learn that the iPhone does not count as a planning device if you're somewhere with unreliable cell signal-- which, for my phone, is EVERYWHERE).

I was supposed to print out addresses for these places on Friday but was too busy. Leah remembered from her research that the former Grossinger's resort, which closed in the late 80s, looked like amazing starting point, and it was nearby, so we began pestering my husband and her boyfriend via phone to help us find it using their home Interwebs.

If you know where to look for it, Grossinger's is quite easy to find. If not, you bumble around a bit like we did. At one intersection, we realized the next day, all we had to do was go straight at the light. You know, past the sign that said Grossinger's?

...and we would've driven right up to the former main entrance. But that would've been too easy.

So we may or may not have parked, walked up a hill, and smooshed through a gate. We were in! Up an overgrown road, and there she was. This late-60s Grossinger's building was called the Jenny G.

It showed the effects of two decades of ravaging by malicious vandals and weather and neglect. We entered with caution into chilly heavy air, on spongy wet carpeting that came apart with each step. Otto's first action was to take a dump, and the place was such a wreck that this was almost an improvement.

The first floor rooms were probably once intended for guests, with two Murphy beds each, but by the end they were likely used for offices or storage. Files, cards, publications, and receipts were strewn everywhere.

In a storage closet, I found a stack of cards all bearing the same disturbing handwritten message.

I assume these are records of extermination of pests, but..."guts thrown away"?

One flight up, this scene.

We still had a lot of ground to cover, so we moved on. Here's the other side of the Jenny G. At the lower right corner you can see where a breezeway once connected it to the main lobby.

Next we wandered into what was meant to be the grand new entrance of the new and improved Grossinger's.

This would have been where guests were dropped off and luggage was unloaded. (Where were guests' cars then taken? We never found out.)

Inside the new lobby, frozen in progress:

A word on the styles of this resort. Grossinger's earliest structures were a quaint Tudor style. As much as I love midcentury modern architecture, the midcentury buildings added at Grossinger's were already a departure from the original style, not a seamless match. So if I may opine, it seems in these final aborted additions, the architects were applying a 1990s mall-style scale where it just didn't fit, on the type of vacation destination that was no longer wanted in the 90s.

View of lobby from atop the steps:

Beyond that, we found one of the iconic scenes of abandoned Grossinger's, an eerie row of counter-less stools at what used to be the coffee shop.

Also in this area was the Mon Ami Shop, which sold pool accessories and souvenirs, and the Grossinger's post office.

I'll have to investigate this further, but I believe the area seen behind the ghostly stools might have been the Terrace Lounge, as seen in this postcard for sale on CardCow.com. The half-wall you can see in the photo above toward the window is similar to the one below on the right.

It looked like this on the other side of that half-wall:

Exiting to outside, we found some of the older Tudor buildings, not in good shape. I believe I read that this one used to be staff quarters.

Although my first impression was that it was laundry facilities.

Don't forget your towel!

As we peeked into the peeling, rusted bathrooms of that building, which bore a strong resemblance to the public restroom building of Cabrini Green featured in the film Candyman, we heard cars approaching and ran for cover. We later learned that we were next to a road leading to the still-operational Grossinger's golf course.

Back inside, amazing views silently awaited our arrival. These pool lounge chairs, which I recognized from photos online, were a precursor to what was ahead.

And then we finally stumbled onto the jackpot: Grossinger's indoor pool.

It was breathtaking.

Birds chirping in the nearby trees were the only soundtrack to the ruin of this midcentury modern marvel. I'd admired it online before, not realizing we would see it in real life today. For me, as someone enthralled by midcentury culture and design and fascinated with apocalyptica and urban decay, it was a cathedral. We spoke in reverent, hushed tones.

Although the power has been off for years, this pool atrium is still dramatically lit from above, due to its marvelous design. (Looking back at the ceiling in the first photo of the new lobby above, they were likely attempting to echo this effect.)

Also extremely worthy of note (for me) are these starburst-style chandeliers.

This is one of my favorite shots from the visit.

This pool might not seem to blend in with the rest of the place. But while the woodwork pattern of the windows strikes me as reminiscent of the 30s/40s work of the De Stijl artist Mondrian (if unfamiliar, just picture the graphics of Studio Line from L'Oreal) or Craftsman architecture, its horizontal narrow panes are also a nod to the narrow window strips in Grossinger's earlier Tudor buildings, seen above.

As you walk around here, the buckled tiles crunch and groan under your feet. In addition to the ferns, some sections of the pool-area flooring sport a 3-D stubble of fuzzy white mold.

Here's a self-portrait of the three of us explorers, in a mirrored part of the pillar that the vandals haven't gotten around to smashing yet.

This is what I looked like: whaaaaaaat

And then our dog alarm went off. Otto barked in urgent defense/ stranger attack messages. Someone was coming! But it was just two harmless dudes with cameras doing the same thing we were doing, only they had now probably lost one life each due to fear of mauling by a dog. (It's OK, we are totally Facebook friends now. And one of them contributes to the great Weird NJ!) We bummed around with those two guys most of the rest of the visit, which felt safer in numbers.

Together, we checked out the Joy Cottage.

This whole resort ruin is a crying shame, but as a city renter with house fever I am particularly dismayed this cool Brady Bunch style house has just been left to rot. I would've gladly lived there, even on the edge of abandoned stuff. Or why didn't they let a security guard live there in exchange for protecting the place? In any case, it's a waste. You can't go in, the floors are collapsed.

We headed over another overgrown road past more overgrown late-60s hotel structures. What's that beyond these supersized ornamental hedges?

The outdoor Olympic pool, built around 1948, is now well along nature's progression to becoming just a really big hole.

Here, it was silent, but it was easy to imagine what it used to sound like when people ringed the pool five and ten deep, when it looked like this postcard.

Beyond the pool, an outbuilding that looked to be a former tennis pro shop/ Raquetball building.

But mostly it was another space I would totally live in! The fieldstone floor! The wood ceiling beams! The fireplace! What the hell, people? Who leaves this to rot? I'm scandalized.

[Deep breath]

Moving on.

We bid adieu to our sometime companions in exploration and departed, rather exhausted from the scare factor of the day, and both of us humans feeling the effects of breahting in millions of mold, mildew, asbestos and various other particles. And it was awesome.

We won!

It was all we could talk about at the fire that night; how crazy it all was. We examined the day from every angle. It was exhausting. How had we thought we could hit multiple resorts in one day?

In fact, the next day, we went back to that Mexcellent eatery in Liberty, and then we went back to Grossinger's when we figured out we could drive right up to it. So without meaning to stop again, we found a little bit more.

First, this former tennis court.

Next, the greenhouse!

Finally, not thinking there was much else exciting to find, we stumbled onto a carnivalesque building; what we first took for a theater.

Don't miss the BARREL JUMPING sign.

Due to the rotting stripey whimsy, this managed to be one of the most astounding discoveries yet. Where was the zombie clown? The floors were rotted so we couldn't proceed in to the left where we would have presumed the stage to be. But we should have noted the room's orientation toward the large windows to the right.

I noticed once back outside that building, there was a large flat space that had managed to remain mostly plant-free. What was this?

Further investigation online revealed that this outdoor area was once the Grossinger's ice rink, famous for its barrel-jumping competitions. According to Jonathan Haeber, who released a book about the Grossinger's ruins last year, the building was designed by Morris Lapidus, known for his 1950s neo-baroque modern resort style in Miami (and elsewhere in the Catskills, and also a former Martin's department store I can see if I stick my head out my apartment window and look to the left).

So all of that basically gave us enough material for a legendary weekend. But then we passed about 400 other abandoned Hebrew and Jew-ish and maybe some secular camps and summer bungalow rentals, arriving not far away at Kutcher's in Monticello.

Kutcher's, where several of my uncles and one aunt worked back in the 60s/70s. Kutcher's, which is still hanging on by a string. Well...here's what some people who have stayed there have to say about the place.

We walked past various young Orthodox Jewish families loading luggage into shuttle vans, past a sign stating non-registered guests would be subject to a $50 fee, we were instantly greeted with a mold smell upon entry, and strolled past an unattended front desk.

We rolled through an empty piano lounge:

Then a dark hall. I would not be the first to make the comparison to The Shining, but for good reason.

I mean, we peeked into a room and it was all like

I kid, but only kind of.

Every door in that (hopefully) empty wing was ajar. We glanced in a room or two, and the first one had a bunch of dead leaves and some plaster crumbles, and a bucket to catch a leak. We hightailed it out of there. We stopped to use the restroom and found an open toilet tank haunted with black mold.

The pool area across from the main entrance had a large 50s/60s-ish vertical bow-tie motif on the right side. It was hopping with a few younguns, but we didn't want to be creeps by not only looking at kids but probably breaking additional rules we didn't even know about. To the right on the other side of the giant bow ties was the Starlight Club, closed. We continued on to another wing, stopping to gawk at the chrome and mirror counter for Justine Cosmetics ("Make Up Show Every Day").

About 8 metal folding chairs were set up to the left of the counter for viewers of this Make Up Show.

We encountered a few people over here, all but one apparently guests, but no one paid us any mind. Bigger gefilte fish to fry, probably. We passed what I believe was until fairly recently (according to my online snoopings) the gift shop, but is now a daycare center.

Off to the right, the ice rink, announced in the font I've named Vintage Budweiser.

And emptiness, leading to a foil-papered performance venue where my husband and other friends saw bands perform when the All Tomorrow's Parties festival landed here for two years, and a cafeteria or something.

We scrambled out of there before being discovered. Driving back to Brooklyn, before Leah headed off to an internship in D.C. for the summer, we were giddy, exhausted, and could not imagine a better weekend for weirdos like ourselves.

I Sent Coo-coo Mail to Sierra Club

2011-05-31T22:27:49-05:00

Long time no blog! (Blogging in 2011? Tl;dr!) It's been a rough first half of 2011, to be honest. I'm not really myself. So you'll have to forgive me, but after coming home to yet another mailing from Sierra Club, I had to respond in a way that I knew would be recieved as crazy when it reached its destination. And I also had to share it with you.

(unreadably small illustrative preview:)

Crazy mail, also known as scare mail or jail mail, is familiar to anyone who has worked at a magazine or in TV. It is reader or viewer mail sent by someone who is quite clearly crazy. You can easily tell because they fill up whole pages with writing veering off in all directions on the page, and it is crazy.

First, the background.

Cooper the dog likes bears. I determined this from the time a nature show about bears was on TV and Cooper got very interested. This is relevant because when I first got a charity solitiation from Sierra Club, among many, many other items it contained a collection of postcards, and one of these postcards was a bear.

I posted the first bear next to Coopy's food bowl for his enjoyment, we occasionally got more solicitations from Sierra Club, and that was the end of it for a while until we moved. More recently, something kicked into overdrive at Siera Club HQ. The mailings were no longer occasional. Both myself and the hubbs got our own solicitations on a regular basis--it seemed they came every few weeks. It seemed downright aggressive. Only a few months into 2011 I had numerous bears-- and the bears don't even come in every mailing.

I get that a certain amount of each charity's expenses go to outreach. But outreach can only be affective in the right doses.

Here is a breakdown of the organization's annual expenses, as reported by Charity Navigator:

Expenses
Program Expenses	$41,016,345
Administrative Expenses	$867,676
Fundraising Expenses	$4,097,850
Total Functional Expenses	$45,981,871

We can probably assume these mailings fall under "fundraising." In addition to the nearly $4.1 million fundraising expense, though, is the waste. It's difficult to overlook that a charity purporting to protect the environment has no issue with regularly sending out to their mailing list envelopes stuffed with multiple pages of letters, along with multiples of each of the following: glossy inserts, vinyl decals, postcards, and greeting cards.

Now...far be it for me to claim a facility with numbers, but it seems to me that a reduction of the frequency and overall bulk of these mailings (say, by a third) could result in a significant amount of dollars that could go toward whatever work it is that the Sierra Club does for nature. I don' t even know because I've been too distracted by what they do against nature with their mailings. But surely it would help if they reduced the expenses of these mailings.

And so I started my small spiteful pushback on Sierra Club.

The first time, I stuffed all the donation soliciation and promotional materials back into the postage-paid envelope to send back to the organization on their dime. I incluced a letter declaring that they sent stuff too often, and they sent too much of it, asking them to stop. (I also mentioned keeping the bear.)

I thought the problem was solved, until another envelope packed with the usual stack of materials arrived today. Time to get a little more emphatic. (click photo to enlarge)

I stuffed everything including the envelope it arrived in, back into the postage-paid pre-addressed envelope. With a fume-issuing fat marker, I printed in block letters one word on each of the three remaining attached postcards (I took the bear): STOP / WASTING / PAPER! I signed it with an address label from the Nature Conservancy.

Then I sealed the outside of the envelope with address labels from all the other charities that send me shit and put another few on the front upper left corner just to have used one of each type.

(From what I've gathered, charity solicitation mail comes in two flavors: one flavor uses a lot of the color green, line drawings of leaves, and pictures of flowers and animals. That's mostly the kind I get. The other flavor favors the flag, eagles, and veterans in wheelchairs. I get the odd one or two of those due to my tendency to like old people and old things as indicated by my subscriptions to Reminisce and Preservation magazines.)

Then I couldn't help adding all that exterior writing that looked so unhinged.

So that's how that happened. Next time they may get a brick mailed to them using the postage paid envelope, and after that, a cinder block.

Scenes From a Mall

2011-02-25T11:47:12-06:00

The Fulton Mall has been my neighbor for 10 years (minus My Time Away). I wrote about it in my latest Brooklyn Based column here, please give it a read.

As I mention in the column, this pedestrian mall can be not so aesthetically pleasing, but I felt challenged to hunt for some beauty. Now that its current state is endangered, I finally motivated to take some photos in the morning light, before shops opened.

This historic building (formerly Conway) will be converted to lofts. To the left is where H&M is being built.

This is the former site of the demolished Albee Square Mall, as immortalized in the Biz Markie song "Albee Square Mall." Please give it a listen now. In its place rises CityPoint retail/residential. The impressive building behind is the former Dime Savings Bank, now some other damn bank.

Some art installations along abandoned shopfronts on Willoughby:

More info and photos here.

Oh so poignant:

New Brooklyn looming over the old!

Below shows some of the nicer buildings Macy's (at left) took over.

Below, former site of the gas-lit olden restaurant Gage & Tollner, circa 1875 (it's being used as a Boardwalk Empire filming location yesterday and today).

A subterranean shoe repair nook in the 2/3 subway station.

Former site of Schrafft's restaurant, which was once a very big deal.

Macy's foyer, pre-opening.

My favorite ghost ad, at viewing height for the former elevated trains.

A remnant from a former department store:

And ahh, Thom McAn, I knew them (and Fayva) well from my own mall days.

Incognito with the Guidos + Bonus Material

2011-02-02T23:45:37-06:00

Well, my nonexisitent dream of getting into Penthouse magazine before my 37th birthday came true. My in-depth investagative report Incognito with the Guidos came out in the February issue, released on the day before my birthday, including not very good photos I took of my attempted transformation into guidette. I thought I'd share some more photos from that mission here.

If you haven't read the story yet, please do. If you have, click through for the photos.

My bisque stems and terra cotta fake-tanned feet.

Same thing happened with my hands. I guess they're made up mostly of absorbent dead skin.

Practicing my fight pose, which would happen just before I ran away.

Pose like a Kardashian.

Practicing my duckface.

Tony Tony Tony.

USA! USA! (Actual chant during this photo.)

Annnd, get me outta here.

Come Hear About Grown Up Life Skills

2010-12-27T17:06:04-06:00

I am very fortunate to host a reading series at Union Hall called Show and Tell, and the next one is set for two days before my birthday, on Jan 17, which is also MLK day. The theme this month is Home Economics.

We have presentations on grooming! food! and fashion! from:

Giulia Rozzi

Kurt Opprecht

Brandy Barber

Kyle Supley

What kinds of "show" happens at Show and Tell? So far, presenters have shown photos, video, actual subject props from the stories being told, an eyewitness, live musical performance, letters, emails, pantomime, no-budget animation, and a horrifying poster.

So, I know it's crap weather out, but do come. There's even a giveaway from Etsy shop DaSweetZpot, where the winner can choose from prizes including handcrafted Italian jams and jellies, and an invention called the potato pouch, which allows you to microwave a potato in five minutes without it turning into a big weird wrinkle, and/or treats like chocolate fudge with chipotle, which looks like this when it's being made:

See? You are learning about home economics already.

It feels good to go to live shows in winter once you drag your arse out. If you won't make the show but want to show support, please like Show and Tell on Facebook.