The Borscht Belt:
Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland
1. What is your new book about?
The
Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland (Cornell University Press) presents a contemporary view of more
than forty hotel and bungalow sites of the former Borscht Belt, a resort area
located in New York’s Catskill Mountains. It is also the region where I grew
up.
Today the
Borscht Belt is recalled through the nostalgic lens of summer swims, Saturday
night dances, and comedy performances. But its current state, like
that of many other formerly
glorious regions, is nothing like its earlier status. Forgotten about and
exhausted, much of its structural environment has been left to decay. The Borscht Belt, which
features essays by Stefan Kanfer and Jenna Weissman Joselit, presents my
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 I shot inside and outside locations that once buzzed with life
as year-round havens for generations of people. 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. Other sites have since been demolished, or repurposed, making this book
an even more significant documentation of a pivotal era in American Jewish
history.
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. In the absence of human activity, nature has reclaimed
the sites, having encroached upon or completely overtaken them. Many of the
interiors have been vandalized or marked by paintball players and graffiti
artists. Each ruin lies radically altered by the elements and effects of time.
My images record all of these developments.
2. What inspired its creation?
Four
words: “Shoot what you know.” These words came from a mentor/friend when I was
quite confused about my next project. I knew my hometown region had a
vibrant past that in the physical sense was slipping away. The sites and locations
where the Borscht Belt occurred, if they hadn’t been repurposed or knocked
down, were lying in various states of ruin throughout the county. Eyesores to
many and signs of stagnation and lack of development to others, but to me,
places of intrigue and narrative.
3. What was the book process like---
how hard was it to select what to include or exclude? Was it
challenging to put words to images for the book?
It was
easy to select certain images that had to be included – for various reasons but
mainly because they were great photographs. Others were harder to let go of;
whether the idea was redundant (a plant growing through floor, an outdoor pool
that had morphed into a pond, etc.) or the photograph just wasn’t as good as it
could be to grace an entire page. Sometimes, this meant not only cutting a
specific photograph but also a specific hotel or bungalow colony. In total, the
book contains 40 hotel or bungalow colony sites. Of course I wanted more, but I
needed to make edits, and only could include so many images in the book.
4. Your book pays homage to
the Catskills world. What was it like in its heyday?
I’d say
the book is an elegy to a lost world, and in many ways about loss and change.
The
Borscht Belt was the preeminent destination for tens of thousands of
predominantly east coast American Jews from the 1920s through the mid-1960s.
Located ninety miles northwest of New York City, it was known internationally
as a summer retreat for entertainment and leisure, though the tourism industry
operated year round. For more than forty-five years, the Borscht Belt reigned
supreme in the American Jewish experience, exerted a strong influence on the
cultural and economic landscape of New York State at large, and shaped popular
American culture and imagination. It has been said the Borscht Belt was
comprised of over 500 hotels and 50,000 bungalows. During its heyday it was the place to be, frequented by celebrities,
entertainers, musical acts, singers, dignitaries, individuals, and families. It
forged many social and cultural bonds that extend to the present day. The era
also hugely impacted American popular culture with many of the said
entertainers, singers, comedians who got their start on the stages of the
resorts (Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan
Rivers, and even, Jerry Seinfeld played the hotels in the early 80s).
5. There's something haunting but
romantic about your images, kind of like looking at images of recovered
Titanic remains, no?
It’s a
peculiar beauty, spooky, eerie, and yes, romantic. I think the ruin evokes the
gamut of feelings from light to dark. Remnants, relics, whatever you want to
call them, initially there’s a basic wow factor and questions of why and how
this happened, then the feelings shift to those of sadness, sublime, and
sometimes confusion, or utter bewilderment. No matter what feelings are
stirred, I do look at the ruin as a place of vitality, and not one that is dead
or inert. These sites have withstood time and are still active powers,
collapsing and regenerating with each season. From the research to the image
making to the final edits on the photographic prints, each return to the ruins
of the Borscht Belt reveals an outer landscape that is continually changing.
6. You are Brooklyn-born and attended
SUNY Albany. You could be my twin! When did you know you wanted to pursue
photography?
I took a
black and white photography class at age 16 and was hooked by the magic of the
darkroom, the developer, the hands-on process, and even, the smell of the
chemicals. I love that smell. I was born in Brooklyn in 1980 but moved to the
Catskills (Kiamesha Lake, NY) in the mid-1980s. My dad didn’t want to raise his
family in the city and accepted a job up there. He took it, partly because like
so many, it was the place where he had some of the best memories of his life. I
am a 1998 graduate of Monticello High School, a 2002 graduate of SUNY Albany (B.A.
in Studio Art/Photography) and a 2011 graduate of San Diego State University
(M.F.A. in Studio Art/Photography). But while I do have the training per se,
art isn’t about training, to me, its about feeling and expressing those
feelings through one’s medium of choice. For myself, I always gravitated
towards the arts, even at a young age. I was never so great at drawing or
painting, but when I found a camera and learned how to use it, I also learned
that is a powerful tool to convey thoughts, ideas and messages.
7. Could you do a
photo-book series on abandoned or decrepit homes, bordered theaters,
or abandoned places?
Probably,
but for this project and during this time, I was solely interested in the
abandoned vestiges of the Borscht Belt (i.e.: hotels, resorts and bungalow
colonies).
8. What do you strive to do with
your work?
Make
people look at the images I make for longer than one second.
9. How is shooting photography
similar to writing books?
There are
major differences I gather but the parallels that quickly come to mind are
about intention, thought, composition on a page or in a frame, and selective,
objective editing.
10. Is the quality of photography
suffering when fewer people buy quality cameras and too many rely on their
smartphone to capture the world around them?
Undeniably.
We live in such a digital world. It was Erykah Badu who said, “I’m an analog
girl in a digital world,” and that line has resonated with me for years. It’s
so easy to snap away, endlessly and without thought. The ease of technology has
made society at large slower. Photography at large still has so many
interesting and thoughtful people working in the field, but to the amateur, or
the hobbyist, or the barrage of images on social media, many (not all) are
sharp-shooter images made very quickly, and posted just as quickly. Of course,
I am a victim of the social world. How can one not be? When I was in high
school we had dial up Internet! Could anyone nowadays imagine waiting for a
signal! Now, you just click and you’re connected. With regard to photography
however, I think it’s essential that photographers are fluent in both languages
(film and digital) because for me, film is the language of thought, and
honestly, it has more soul. I began this project digitally but soon crossed
over to film. It slowed me down, forced me to consider my images (16 exposures
on a roll of film vs. thousands on a memory card). It also has truer color, and
more detail, and like I said…it has soul.
11. Is seeing your images in
a printed book better than circulating them digitally?
Without a
doubt. For me, there is nothing like the physical action of holding a book in
one’s hands, looking through it, spending time with it. While digital
circulation is fantastic, and has its pros, a major con of it is a loss of the
actual holding & looking experience. Furthermore, it’s rough on the eyes.
12. How do you photograph what a person
feels or thinks?
You tap
into them - you give some of yourself, while asking them to give part of them.
It is an exchange, a collaboration, not just a one sided
I-am-making-the-photograph-and-you-pose-for-it-sort-of-thing. It’s practically
intimate. Henri Cartier Bresson once said, “you
have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt
which is not a very easy thing. And the attitudes of people are so different in
front of a camera. Some embarrassed, some are ashamed, some hate to be
photographed and others are showing off. You feel people very quickly. You see
people naked through the viewfinder, you see them strip naked.” The interview
is worth a watch, its very inspiring, whimsical 18 minutes of your life and
he’s just straight phenomenal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyhMqDfmG9o
13. Do you have any advice to
struggling photographers?
My advice
is similar to the four words passed on to me when I was struggling with content
and subject matter. “Shoot what you know.” I think these simple yet poignant
words are appropriate for any photographer, writer, artist, musician, etcetera,
who wrestling with a specific focus to pursue. For me, Sullivan County, also
known the Borscht Belt was the place I grew up, worked, lived, and in turn, the
place I know. Revisiting it was a way to not only reconnect with myself but
with the immense history of the area, through a contemporary lens.
14. Where do you see
book-publishing heading?
This is a
difficult question for me as this is my first book and working on it, was like
working in a vacuum, albeit the handful or two of (amazing) people from Cornell
University Press such as my editor, book designer, copy editor, and also my
mentor, who helped me layout the book. Getting the book deal was not easy, but
it was something I was not going to give up on. The direction of publishing is
a question I think best asked to someone in the field itself, but I do not
think people at large will ever cease to put down books in exchange for digital
versions. I also think there will eventually be a movement away from technology,
and back to the basics – book reading, letter writing, and more one on one
communication/conversation, and even phone calls (and not just texting)! We are
al victims of a technologically driven society, sometimes to a fault. The other
day my grandmother was on the phone with me saying, “all you kids do is text,
you’re always with the phone,” from her perspective, it must be very
interesting and also possibly overwhelming to witness. I try to look at it from
her vantage point. As for book publishing, it’s intense and I learned so much
with this first book. I hope to carry that knowledge on to a second.
If you
want to check out her work, I encourage you to consult: www.marisascheinfeld.com or www.borschtbeltbook.com!
Note: I visited her exhibit and bought a copy of her book. It
is a truly interesting approach, artistically and culturally, to capture a time
and place in this manner.
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Brian Feinblum’s views,
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at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the
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