Last dance for the Grossinger Hotel. The facility in Liberty, New York, USA, whose full name is Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel, was destroyed by fire last Tuesday. Opened in 1919, the facility was famous for inspiring the script dirty dancinga cult American feature film released in 1987 that depicts the summer romance between a young New Yorker and a choreographer.
If the filming of the film took place not at the Grossinger Hotel, but at the Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia, then it strongly inspired the script. The complex was located in the Borscht Belt, a tourist area frequented since the 1920s by New York’s Jewish clientele escaping anti-Semitism in the city’s country clubs and hotels. The phenomenon continued in the post-war period and particularly in the 1960s. it was during this period that the heroine of the film, then during a family vacation in one of the regional institutions, made a meeting with a choreographer with whom she falls madly in love.
Abandoned for years
According to the Freedom Fire Service, it took several hours for the firefighters to restore the situation and extinguish the fire. An excavator was even required to demolish the rest of the hotel structure, which had become too fragile. The cause of the fire is still unknown, and the New York State Police have launched an investigation.
The hotel complex, which has 36 buildings and notably had a swimming pool, golf course and a giant dining hall that could seat about 1,400 people, was effectively closed in 1986 after the establishment was sold to a new owner who was never able to prosper its business. In 2018, the remaining abandoned infrastructure was demolished, and only one building was still standing before the fire broke out.
Source: Le Figaro
