Today the Borscht Belt is recalled through the nostalgic lens of summer swims, Saturday night dances, and comedy performances. --Al Jaffee, ninety-five-year-old journeyman cartoonist Jewish Review of Books.
Scheinfeld\'s images record all of these developments.
Each ruin lies radically altered by the elements and effects of time.
Many of the interiors have been vandalized or marked by paintball players and graffiti artists.
In the absence of human activity, nature has reclaimed the sites, having encroached upon or completely overtaken them.
From entire expanses of abandoned properties to small lots containing drained swimming pools, the Remains of the Borscht Belt era now lie forgotten, overgrown, and vacant.
The Borscht Belt presents a contemporary view of more than forty hotel and bungalow sites.
Other sites have since been demolished or repurposed, making this book an even more significant documentation of a pivotal era in American Jewish history.
Some of the structures have been lying abandoned for periods ranging from four to twenty years, depending on the specific hotel or bungalow colony and the conditions under which it closed.
The Borscht Belt , which features essays by Stefan Kanfer and Jenna Weissman Joselit, presents Marisa Scheinfeld\'s photographs of abandoned sites where resorts, hotels, and bungalow colonies once boomed in the Catskill Mountain region of upstate New York.
The book assembles images Scheinfeld has shot inside and outside locations that once buzzed with life as year-round havens for generations of people.
Forgotten about and exhausted, much of its structural environment has been left to decay.
But its current state, like that of many other formerly glorious regions, is nothing like its earlier status.
Today the Borscht Belt is recalled through the nostalgic lens of summer swims, Saturday night dances, and comedy performances
