After failing at farming in the Catskills, Selig and Malke Grossinger, Polish immigrants, bought a large house on 100 acres, named it Grossinger’s, and made their daughter Jennie the manager. Malke, the daughter of an innkeeper who knew about hospitality, believed that “a life without sharing is barren.” Grossinger’s served strictly kosher food and attracted winter guests with the first artificial snow machine in 1952. By the time Jennie Grossinger died in 1972, the hotel’s 1,200 acres had 35 buildings and served 150,000 guests a year. The hotel closed in 1986 and only the golf course remained open. Read more about Grossinger’s and U.S. cultural history in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).
