Poolside at Grossingers: First a golf club at the former boarding house, then cabanas, tans and bikinis.
their source. A neighboring
owner was the one in finan-
cial distress. The rival ho-
telier had hoped to stampede
the Grossinger crowd to his
place. Once Jennie discov-
ered the scheme, she dispat-
ched a guest to act as mid-
dleman. He offered to buy
the rival hotel, settled on
terms, and then sold it to the
Grossingers. It was the last
feud anyone had with the
family. When Jennie decided
to hire professionals in the
early 1930s, the luck held.
The son of a long-time guest
was never to forget Mama's
favorite resort, and the
attendant publicity of
Milton Berle's visits always
brought more business.
From the staff of part-time
musicians, Grossinger's
hired Shepard Feldman,
later Shep Fields, the dance-
band leader whose celebrat-
ed Rippling Rhythms were
inspired, he said, by the
sound of Catskill brooks.
Grossinger's first full-time
social director was Don
Hartman, soon to be head of
production at Paramount.
After Hartman left the re-
sort to try his luck in
Hollywood, Jennie personal-
ly supervised the hiring of
talent. It was not a success.
After a few misadventures,
she turned the job over to
Milton Blackstone, a hyper-
thyroid public-relations
man.
Blackstone hired social di-
rectors, collared prospective
guests in New York City,
and served as Jennie's per-
sonal trouble-shooter.
Blackstone's greatest in-
spiration was the merchan-
dising of winter. Until the
1930s, Grossinger's, like all
its competitors, regarded
the Season as, at most, four
months long. After the High
Holy Days of Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur,
leaves were raked up, lawns
reseeded, pipes drained,
staffs laid off, and facilities
prepared to lie in wait until
spring. For the few guests
who lingered on, cold weath-
er activities consisted of a
walk in the snow and, per-
haps, some tentative figure
eights on a frozen pond. This
schedule dramatically ex-
panded in late 1932 when
the family hired Irving
Jaffee, a young, Jewish,
Olympic Gold Medalist as
winter sports director.
There always had been
money in sport, but it was
Blackstone who sensed that
a hotelier willing to stoop
could pick up a lot of small
change in the off-season.
Among the first Jewish ath-
letes to appear at Gross-
inger's was a scrappy
lightweight champion nam-
ed Barney Ross (nee Rasof-
sky). There were no worthy
contenders in his weight
class, and in 1933 Ross
agreed to fight Jimmy
McLarnin for the wel-
terweight championship.
Blackstone had little trouble
persuading him to train at
"We're not only a
hotel, but a country
club," said Jennie
Grossinger. "It's
time to act more
dignified."
the fully equipped Gross-
inger's gym; the difficulty
came with Malke. When she
was told a prizefighter
would be staying at her
place, the old lady inquired,
"What is he, a drinker, that
he must do such a thing? He
can't hold a steady job?"
She refused to meet him un-
til one afternoon when the
boxer was given a tour of the
kitchen. She suddenly rec-
ognized Ross: "This is the
box-fighter? He was Friday
night in the synagogue."
After that, all doors were
open to Ross.
Joel Pomerantz, who
charted Jennie's rise, says
that, during the weeks of
workouts, "the best-known
sports writers of New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia, and
the wire services were all
there. With a nudge from
Milton Blackstone, instead
of datelining their daily
stories 'Liberty' (home of
the nearest Western Union
office), they datelined them
`Grossinger, N.Y.' When
rain canceled Barney's
workout, they would write
feature stories on the hotel,
about Jennie, about how it
all began back in 1914, and
about the invigorating air."
Grossinger's was no
longer another Catskill re-
sort. It was, as New York
Daily News sports colum-
nist Paul Gallico wrote,
" 'The Big G.' When Damon
Runyon dubbed the hotel
`Lindy's with trees,' Broad-
way knew Grossinger's was
in."
It was to remain so until
the rumors of insolvency
surfaced in the 1950s, when
they were downed, and in
the 1980s, when it was im-
possible to deny them.
In November 1972, after a
long series of illnesses,
Jennie Grossinger died of a
stroke at age 80. She was
buried beside Malke, who
had died at about the same
age in 1952.
Jennie was recalled as a
fundraiser for scores of char-
ities, as the classic Jewish
mother figure, as a nonpareil
hostess and lodestar of the
resorts. In an unusually
warm obituary, the New
York Times said she had
brought a little farm "to the
rank of flagship of the fleet
of landlocked luxury liners
anchored in the Catskills...
She ruled, with regal digni-
ty, a domain larger than
Princess Grace's Monaco...
Whether she was greeting
guests who had endured the
long trip up with the 'hackie'
who had picked them up be-
tween Brooklyn and the
Bronx, or such dignitaries as
Gov. Rockefeller or Sen.
Robert F. Kennedy, who
came by chauffeured car,
Mrs. Grossinger was the
symbol that they were visit-
ing a family, not merely an
impersonal hostelry."
The news that everyone
had been dreading was con-
firmed in 1985. Grossinger's
was to be sold to developers.
The centerpiece of the Jew-
ish resorts had been losing
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