In 2016, photographer Marisa Scheinfeld released The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland, a collection of ghostly photos of the western Catskills that seemed to capture the area’s fate. Once-glorious resorts that populated the mountainous region north and west of New York City in the middle of the last century—the Catskills’ golden age—were now decayed carcasses littering the landscape, with lonely lounge chairs abandoned next to parched Olympic-sized pools.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the Catskills: Hoteliers started to take notice of the area again. Amid the Catskills’ 35 high peaks and nearly 6,000 square miles—which include waterfalls, ice caves, rocky cliffs, and fly-fishing spots—several of those downtrodden resorts have been reborn or revamped, and shuttered or ailing smaller motels, hotels, guesthouses, and inns—not to mention a major casino complex—have recently opened, or are just about to….Click Here To Keep Reading