The Woman Who Built the Waldorf of the Catskills
Despite Her Humble Origins, Jennie Grossinger Learned to Play the Role of Hostess
Just as in Casablanca everybody came to Rick’s, so in the Catskill Mountains of New York everybody aspired to go to Jennie’s.
In its storied 1914-to-1986 existence, Jennie Grossinger’s family boarding house was called Longbrook House (the original name when the Galician Jews first started to rent out the spare bedrooms of their rundown farmhouse), Grossinger’s Terrace Hill House, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel (which built upon the original framework of the Terrace Hill House), and then finally, at the peak of …