A huge blaze engulfs Grossinger's Hotel, the location that inspired 'Dirty Dancing'
By: JACLYN DIAZ npr
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A huge blaze engulfs Grossinger's Hotel, the location that inspired 'Dirty Dancing'
A building on the old Grossinger's Hotel property was destroyed after a fire on Tuesday. The Liberty Fire Department Facebook
A major fire burned down the remaining pieces of the Grossinger's Hotel property, a former vacationing spot in the Catskills and inspiration for the 1987 hit film Dirty Dancing.
The Liberty Fire Department was dispatched to calls of a fire on the old property on Tuesday night. They arrived to find a large, three-and-a-half story building fully engulfed in flames. The blaze was so large that the smoke column could be seen for several miles away, according to the department.
In recent years, the property had become largely overgrown and abandoned. This impeded the responder's ability to get to the site of the fire. Firefighters had to cut through a gate in order to access the roadway to the building. Concrete barriers in the road further blocked firefighters' easy access to the scene, the fire department said.
Another angle of the fire at a building on the Catskills' old Grossinger's resort. The Liberty Fire Department Facebook
Once the fire was out, an excavator was brought in to knock down the remaining pieces of the building, officially ridding the Catskills of what remained of the Grossinger Hotel.
The fire is still under investigation, according to the Liberty Fire Department.
Grossinger's heyday was after World War II, according to the Associated Press . Hundreds of thousands of vacationers made their way to the Catskills to visit the spot. One such visitor was Eleanor Bergstein, writer and producer of Dirty Dancing, who vacationed there with her family .
The film tells the romantic story of a young woman (played by Jennifer Grey), named Francis "Baby" Houseman, who falls in love with a dance instructor named Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), while on vacation in 1963 at a resort just like Grossinger.
Before it finally closed in 1986, the hotel encompassed a complex of 35 buildings on 1,200 acres that served 150,000 guests a year at its height.
Though the movie is based on this resort, the filming took place in North Carolina and Virginia.
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I am very sad to see this, even though I was aware that Grossinger's was abandoned, overgrown, a ghost town in itself. I'm sad because I've been a guest there. My parents loved that resort and went there a few times in the early 1950s. They were champion dancers, and won trophies there and elsewhere. They took me along to Grossinger's when I was 16 in 1953 - it was a little off season, but my parents spent a lot of time on that trip with Grossinger's dance team, Tony and Lucille, and I spent my time with their son Leroy. Here is a photo taken in Grossinger's dining room when my parents were there during an earlier visit. My parents are in the middle of the group, middle of the picture, and on my father's right, the blond woman wearing a round necklace medallion, is Jenny Grossinger, the owner of Grossinger's.
Thanks for sharing that Buzz.
I had gone to Grossinger's and my mom used Mrs. Grossinger's cookbook as her bible. It's sad that this is how it all goes.
Really? I am not surprised you world traveler...
I didn't know they had a cookbook.
Seems kind of fishy to me...
I wanted to play a vid then I forgot you can't see them Buzz.
There are members here who can convert them into mp4 that I can watch.
I was just going to post a Youtube vid. You know I always try to add the captions.
I was thinking of the songs from the movie. Sadly my first one was Hungry Eyes...
You just have to tell me what it is and I have a good chance of finding it. Check out this link ->
See if you can open this one Buzz.....
I wonder how many people have tried that song with karaoke...
Thank you Raven, but it wasn't necessary for you to waste your time doing that because I have the exact same video on bilibili and it runs through smoothly LINK->
YVW. Glad you were able to find it on bilibili.
Alrighty then...
My favorite. I love this song. My heart....
Ender, if you are really into the movie Dirty Dancing, here is a 4.5 hour background video on it, with interviews with the principle persons involved with the movie, ending with a tribute to Patrick Swayze. Here is a link to it ->
Thanks. I just love the music.