Catskill Culture

Catskill Culture PDF Author: Phil Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781592131891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A rich ethnographical study, drawing on the memories of guests, staff, and entertainers, chronicles the development of the Jewish Catskill resorts, discussing their impact on both American and immigrant Jewish culture and tracing their slow decline since the 1970s. UP.

Catskill Culture

Catskill Culture PDF Author: Phil Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781592131891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
A rich ethnographical study, drawing on the memories of guests, staff, and entertainers, chronicles the development of the Jewish Catskill resorts, discussing their impact on both American and immigrant Jewish culture and tracing their slow decline since the 1970s. UP.

The Catskills

The Catskills PDF Author: Stephen M. Silverman
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101875887
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
The Catskills (“Cat Creek” in Dutch), America’s original frontier, northwest of New York City, with its seven hundred thousand acres of forest land preserve and its five counties—Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Schoharie; America’s first great vacationland; the subject of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School paintings that captured the almost godlike majesty of the mountains and landscapes, the skies, waterfalls, pastures, cliffs . . . refuge and home to poets and gangsters, tycoons and politicians, preachers and outlaws, musicians and spiritualists, outcasts and rebels . . . Stephen Silverman and Raphael Silver tell of the turning points that made the Catskills so vital to the development of America: Henry Hudson’s first spotting the distant blue mountains in 1609; the New York State constitutional convention, resulting in New York’s own Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and its own constitution, causing the ire of the invading British army . . . the Catskills as a popular attraction in the 1800s, with the construction of the Catskill Mountain House and its rugged imitators that offered WASP guests “one-hundred percent restricted” accommodations (“Hebrews will knock vainly for admission”), a policy that remained until the Catskills became the curative for tubercular patients, sending real-estate prices plummeting and the WASP enclave on to richer pastures . . . Here are the gangsters (Jack “Legs” Diamond and Dutch Schultz, among them) who sought refuge in the Catskill Mountains, and the resorts that after World War II catered to upwardly mobile Jewish families, giving rise to hundreds of hotels inspired by Grossinger’s, the original “Disneyland with knishes”—the Concord, Brown’s Hotel, Kutsher’s Hotel, and others—in what became known as the Borscht Belt and Sour Cream Alps, with their headliners from movies and radio (Phil Silvers, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, et al.), and others who learned their trade there, among them Moss Hart (who got his start organizing summer theatricals), Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Joan Rivers. Here is a nineteenth-century America turning away from England for its literary and artistic inspiration, finding it instead in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and his childhood recollections (set in the Catskills) . . . in James Fenimore Cooper’s adventure-romances, which provided a pastoral history, describing the shift from a colonial to a nationalist mentality . . . and in the canvases of Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederick Church, and others that caught the grandeur of the wilderness and that gave texture, color, and form to Irving’s and Cooper’s imaginings. Here are the entrepreneurs and financiers who saw the Catskills as a way to strike it rich, plundering the resources that had been likened to “creation,” the Catskills’ tanneries that supplied the boots and saddles for Union troops in the Civil War . . . and the bluestone quarries whose excavated rock became the curbs and streets of the fast-growing Eastern Seaboard. Here are the Catskills brought fully to life in all of their intensity, beauty, vastness, and lunacy.

In the Catskills

In the Catskills PDF Author: Phil Brown
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231504403
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
“A nostalgic pastiche of fiction, memoir, photography, art, postcards, menus, etc., celebrating Jewish resort life in the Catskills.”—Providence Journal With selections ranging from literature to song lyrics, this book highlights the Catskills experience over a century, and assesses its continuing impact on American music, comedy, food, culture, and religion. It features selections from such fiction writers as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Herman Wouk, Allegra Goodman and Vivian Gornick; and original contributions from historians, sociologists, and scholars of American and Jewish culture that trace the history of the region, the rise of hotels and bungalow colonies, the wonderful flavors of food and entertainment, and distinctive forms of Jewish religion found in the Mountains. What was life—the work, the play, the food, the romance—like at Catskills Mountains resorts? These very personal recollections capture the special sense of community and freedom that developed among Jewish families leaving the city behind for a summer vacation and enjoying a cultural space of their own. From “Bingo by the Bungalow” by Thane Rosenbaum to “Young Workers in the Hotels” by Phil Brown to “Shoot the Shtrudel to Me Yudel” by Henry Foner, this charming anthology captures an era that has had enormous impact on the Jewish experience and American culture as a whole. “A warm, charming, and valuable work. Much of the writing is simply gorgeous.”—Contemporary Sociology

Catskill Culture

Catskill Culture PDF Author: Phil Brown
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781439906446
Category : Catskill Mountains Region (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description


Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow PDF Author: Washington Irving
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
ISBN: 9788125021766
Category : Catskill Mountains (N.Y.)
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
A man who sleeps for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains wakes to a much-changed world.

Making Mountains

Making Mountains PDF Author: David Stradling
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295989890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
For over two hundred years, the Catskill Mountains have been repeatedly and dramatically transformed by New York City. In Making Mountains, David Stradling shows the transformation of the Catskills landscape as a collaborative process, one in which local and urban hands, capital, and ideas have come together to reshape the mountains and the communities therein. This collaboration has had environmental, economic, and cultural consequences. Early on, the Catskills were an important source of natural resources. Later, when New York City needed to expand its water supply, engineers helped direct the city toward the Catskills, claiming that the mountains offered the purest and most cost-effective waters. By the 1960s, New York had created the great reservoir and aqueduct system in the mountains that now supplies the city with 90 percent of its water. The Catskills also served as a critical space in which the nation's ideas about nature evolved. Stradling describes the great influence writers and artists had upon urban residents - especially the painters of the Hudson River School, whose ideal landscapes created expectations about how rural America should appear. By the mid-1800s, urban residents had turned the Catskills into an important vacation ground, and by the late 1800s, the Catskills had become one of the premiere resort regions in the nation. In the mid-twentieth century, the older Catskill resort region was in steep decline, but the Jewish "Borscht Belt" in the southern Catskills was thriving. The automobile revitalized mountain tourism and residence, and increased the threat of suburbanization of the historic landscape. Throughout each of these significant incarnations, urban and rural residents worked in a rough collaboration, though not without conflict, to reshape the mountains and American ideas about rural landscapes and nature.

The Quarry Fox

The Quarry Fox PDF Author: Leslie T. Sharpe
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468315307
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
“A lyrical celebration . . . This engaging portrait of the Catskill wilderness will appeal to nature enthusiasts of all stripes.” —Library Journal (starred review) A red fox stands poised at the edge of a woodchuck den, his ears perked for danger as two pudgy fox cubs frolic nearby. A mother black bear and her cubs hibernate beneath a felled tree. A barred owl snags a hapless cottontail from a meadow with its precise talons. In The Quarry Fox and Other Tales of the Wild Catskills, Leslie T. Sharpe trains her keen eye and narrative gifts on these and other New York wildlife through her tales of close observations as a naturalist living in the Great Western Catskills. The Quarry Fox is the first in-depth study of Catskill wildlife since John Burroughs invented the genre of nature writing, in which Sharpe weaves her experiences of the seasons, plants, and creatures with the natural history of each organism, revealing their sensitivity to and resilience against the splendor and cruelty of Nature. Sharpe's frank, scientific observations join with her deeply felt connection to these creatures to instill an appreciation of the undaunted and variegated beauty of the Catskills and camaraderie with its animals. From contemplating the importance of milkweed for monarchs to lay their eggs to reveling in the first steps of a wobbly fawn, The Quarry Fox is a celebration of the natural world and our place in it. “A poignant and modern reminder of untamed creatures so close to home.” —The New York Times

Folk Songs of the Catskills

Folk Songs of the Catskills PDF Author: Norman Cazden
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780873955805
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 694

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Book Description
Traditional songs from the Catskill area of New York State are accompanied by detailed discusssions of their roots, development, musical structure, and subject matter

Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber

Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber PDF Author: Allen J. Frishman
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781523632176
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Tales of a Catskill Mountain Plumber is a humorous telling of the great times the baby boomer generation had growing up in "The Country". This was the period of Jewish exodus from city heat to country cool-air. Ruby the Knish Man, the Hippie Rabbi, Louie Slamowitz, and Benny and the Schleps are some of the interesting characters you'll meet in the book. Included are stories about Jewish Lightning, a rare Catskill phenomenon, Mendel's Mansion, and of course the Woodstock Festival. My family worked hard in many bungalow colonies getting the water moving again after the long cold winters. One thing we always made a point of was to laugh at it all which helped us get through those exhausting times. You'll read about this in tales such as "One Strange Collection" and "Come Closer, Closer Still". At night, I donned my rock and roll persona and performed with my band in some of the major hotels like The Pines, Kutchers, The Concord, and colonies such as Clearview Country Club and Fiakloffs. The band's adventures led us to psychedelic displays, and for some the discovery of chopped liver. The book contains a plumbers instruction manual that will guide you through the glory days of the Borscht belt, but in no way will it help you to become a plumber. Also included is an easy to read schematic that translates the Yiddish words helping you to get the full essence of the stories. Throughout the book are some special tips that I'll be sharing with you. Consider these an extra bonus that will make your life just a little easier. You'll wish you had these years ago. "How We Got Here" speaks of my family's coming to the Land of Milk and Honey, and "A New Beginning" spells out the future of the Catskills. If you're a health nut, don't worry. Everything was written without artificial sweeteners, but to give it some extra flavor I added a little "gribines". (Use the schematic, remember)? The book did take about 13 years to complete, but just like a good "chulent" that cooks and cooks, getting better with time, so did the book. It's finally time to eat, so wash your hands and come to the table. Remember, you don't have to eat it all at once, but make sure if you do that the plumbing works! Enjoy "kinderla" enjoy!

Bungalow Kid

Bungalow Kid PDF Author: Philip Ratzer
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 143843300X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
Vividly and lovingly recreates a city kid's summer in the Catskills in the 1950s.