This former hotel resort in the heart of the Catskills region of upstate New York has an interesting history. It was first opened in 1929 to serve Jewish holidaymakers as all the Catskills resorts did. When the great decline of the resorts began in the 1970s it struggled to stay afloat and later closed, before being reopened as a drug rehabilitation centre. This venture didn't last too long, and soon after that folded it was taken over by another hotel company, and that too lasted all of five minutes before they closed their doors for good. I'm not sure exactly when it closed but it was a good number of years ago.
The resort was made up of three main buildings plus, I assume, smaller buildings that had since been demolished. It wasn't the biggest, or grandest, resort out there but it had a lot of the contents left and was a memorable wander, if only for what happened to me on the third floor of the main building - but more on that later. It was also curious to see a medical room that had been left completely intact from it's short time as a rehab centre, which seemed a strange thing to have inside a hotel among the regular bedrooms. The elements had played a serious role in the decay since closure although there was the usual broken stuff from morons.
It's a rubbish photo I know, but this was the scene that greeted me around the back of the main staircase in the above shot - the entire centre of the main building had sunk due to either subsidence or huge water damage - and this should have started ringing the warning bells in my head to be careful.
I then stepped into this room on the top floor, where all the horrible old rockwool insulation had fallen through the sodden ceiling and covered everything in the room...
Moments after taking that photo I decided to investigate it a little closer - bad move. You know in life there are decisions you instantly regret making? Well this was one of them. I heard the floor crack under my feet and, just like they describe in movies everything went into slow motion and I had enough time to think to myself 'Oh shit this is bad' as the floor gave way beneath my feet. And then suddenly I stopped falling, more through sheer dumb luck than anything else. The floor had given way next to a beam and there I was, balanced by the thinnest slice of my arse on a rotten beam, legs and feet dangling freely into the second floor room below. The floors were so bad in the middle of the main building that presumably had I fallen through totally I simply would have kept going. I had the wherewithal to reach and grab the handle of the door that led into the bathroom with my left hand but after trying to find somewhere to put my right hand all I succeeded in doing was putting it straight through the floor in front of me, which did nothing to help the situation. Thankfully my friends had heard my choice words and shout for help, and after they stood in the doorway staring at my predicament one of them decided to assist me in the extrication process. Through more luck I was wearing my small rucksack which has a loop handle on the top so I told my friend to use it to pull me up and back out the hole, and just like that I was out. I have to say it certainly got the old adrenaline going, so much so I was laughing and grinning like an idiot at what had just happened. After taking a photo of 'my hole', we trotted off and finished exploring the rest of the buildings.
'My hole' - you can see how paper thin the floor is, the smaller hole above the big one is the one made by my hand.
Next to this resort is an abandoned bungalow colony, small bungalows that were hired out to holidaymakers. We had a quick scoot around the outside of it before heading off as it wasn't that interesting.
Thanks for looking
The resort was made up of three main buildings plus, I assume, smaller buildings that had since been demolished. It wasn't the biggest, or grandest, resort out there but it had a lot of the contents left and was a memorable wander, if only for what happened to me on the third floor of the main building - but more on that later. It was also curious to see a medical room that had been left completely intact from it's short time as a rehab centre, which seemed a strange thing to have inside a hotel among the regular bedrooms. The elements had played a serious role in the decay since closure although there was the usual broken stuff from morons.
It's a rubbish photo I know, but this was the scene that greeted me around the back of the main staircase in the above shot - the entire centre of the main building had sunk due to either subsidence or huge water damage - and this should have started ringing the warning bells in my head to be careful.
I then stepped into this room on the top floor, where all the horrible old rockwool insulation had fallen through the sodden ceiling and covered everything in the room...
Moments after taking that photo I decided to investigate it a little closer - bad move. You know in life there are decisions you instantly regret making? Well this was one of them. I heard the floor crack under my feet and, just like they describe in movies everything went into slow motion and I had enough time to think to myself 'Oh shit this is bad' as the floor gave way beneath my feet. And then suddenly I stopped falling, more through sheer dumb luck than anything else. The floor had given way next to a beam and there I was, balanced by the thinnest slice of my arse on a rotten beam, legs and feet dangling freely into the second floor room below. The floors were so bad in the middle of the main building that presumably had I fallen through totally I simply would have kept going. I had the wherewithal to reach and grab the handle of the door that led into the bathroom with my left hand but after trying to find somewhere to put my right hand all I succeeded in doing was putting it straight through the floor in front of me, which did nothing to help the situation. Thankfully my friends had heard my choice words and shout for help, and after they stood in the doorway staring at my predicament one of them decided to assist me in the extrication process. Through more luck I was wearing my small rucksack which has a loop handle on the top so I told my friend to use it to pull me up and back out the hole, and just like that I was out. I have to say it certainly got the old adrenaline going, so much so I was laughing and grinning like an idiot at what had just happened. After taking a photo of 'my hole', we trotted off and finished exploring the rest of the buildings.
'My hole' - you can see how paper thin the floor is, the smaller hole above the big one is the one made by my hand.
Next to this resort is an abandoned bungalow colony, small bungalows that were hired out to holidaymakers. We had a quick scoot around the outside of it before heading off as it wasn't that interesting.
Thanks for looking
