AMHERST, Mass. – Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld will discuss her exhibit “Echoes from the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs” at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., Sunday, August 2, at 2 pm.

The exhibit of large-scale photographs documenting the dramatic decline of the New York’s once-popular Catskill Mountain resort area will be at the Yiddish Book Center’s Brechner Gallery through Nov. 22. The exhibit was developed and curated by Yeshiva University Museum.

In her talk, Scheinfeld will discuss growing up in the shadow of the iconic Borscht Belt, which at its peak in the mid-20th century was home to hundreds of resorts, hotels and vacation bungalows, as well as clubs where top comedians and other performers regularly appeared. By the time Scheinfeld was growing up there in the 1980s and ’90s, the area was in serious decline due to economic and demographic shifts. One by one the resorts and hotels closed, and eventually fires, vandalism, wrecking balls and decay left the area populated with ruins.

For the past five years, Scheinfeld has documented the fate of those shuttered hotels and clubs through a series of evocative, hauntingly beautiful images.

In addition to photographs, “Echoes from the Borscht Belt” includes items from Scheinfeld’s personal collection of ephemera from the area’s heyday, among them hotel ashtrays, matchbooks and room keys, period postcards, and dining room menus offering brisket and gefilte fish and, of course, “ice cold beet borscht.”

The Yiddish Book Center is located at 1021 West St., Amherst, Mass. For more information call (413) 256-4900 or email Yiddish@bikherorg.

CAP: Wedgewood Room, The Pines Hotel, South Fallsburg, NY, 2011
MARISA SCHEINFELD