I was just looking at a before and after picture of some resort areas, and I’m puzzled.
In: Other
Air-conditioning and cheap air travel.
Like the Poconos and Berkshires, The Catskills thrived as middle/upper middle class summer getaways for New Yorkers because it was cooler in the mountains than the sweltering city, and because they could be reached within a few hours – initially by train and later by car.
But the advent of widespread residential air conditioning made staying in the city through the hot summer months more comfortable for the well-to-do. And, by the 60s and 70s, lower cost passenger air travel meant more convenient access to, frankly, superior summer tourist destinations, including western Europe. The market dried up and many (eventually most) resorts shut down.
The other thing that must be said about Catskills tourism in particular is that there was a large Jewish element to it. To some extent, Jewish families traveled to the Catskill “Borscht Belt” resorts in the 30s and 40s because, well, it was a destination that was safe for them to travel to, and they did so with other members of their community (e.g. you’d go to the same resort as your aunt’s family, your neighbors, your dad’s navy buddy, etc). But by the 60s and 70s when the next generation came of age, the state of the world didn’t feel quite so limiting to them, and the social fabric of neighborhood Jewish life changed with assimilation and modernity. So they began to prefer other spots and types for tourism.
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