I might attract more readers by headlining the “Fried Chicken War” (see below).
In July of 1919, Joe Ludin was on vacation in the Catskill Mountains of central New York.
Since the 19th century, thousands of New Yorkers abandoned the city each year during the summer months to vacation in upstate New York.
If you were wealthy, you might take your private rail car up the Hudson Valley to a country house; many more urbanites headed for large boarding houses or enormous hotels in the Catskill Mountains.
This blurb, from the Journal of Cultural Geography, describes how the grand hotels of the 19th century gave way to the “Borscht Belt” havens for Jewish recreation in the 20th century.
“This study explores the development of tourism in the Catskill region of New York from the late 18th century to the end of the 19th century. The proximity of the Catskill Mountains to the development of major population centers of the East Coast stimulated interest in this region. At the same time, the rise of the Romantic Movement in art, literature, and landscape design led intellectuals to portray the Catskills as a region of picturesque landscapes. The Romantic image and the relatively pristine environment facilitated in the high peaks of the northern Catskills the development of numerous, grand Victorian resorts patronized primarily by the wealthy elite from the large cities of the East. By the beginning of the 20th century, blatant anti- Semitism was common at the great hotels and resorts. This would eventually help undermine the economic base of the great resorts and stimulate the rise of the “Borscht Belt” in the southern part of the Catskill region.”
Joe mailed a postcard to his friend, Charlie.
Charlie is Charles Berckmann, Jr. of Elmhurst, Long Island.
Elmhurst was once a village on Long Island, but was absorbed into New York City when the Borough of Queens was created from Queens County, and then incorporated into the union of five boroughs that formed the modern metropolis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmhurst,_Queens
The postcard was mailed from Haines Falls, a hamlet atop the Kaaterskill Falls in Greene County of east-central New York.
The hamlet was always a mountain resort, unlike nearby communities (e.g., Tannersville) which had tanneries.
In 1919, there were three large hotels near Haines Falls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haines_Falls,_New_York
The face off the postcard is dominated by an image of “boulder rock” and a distant view of the Hotel Kaaterskill.
(Many place names in southeastern New York end in “kill”, meaning “stream”. This inheritance from
Dutch settlers is also evident in “Schuylkill”.)
The postcard does not clearly show that this “glacial erratic” (deposited by retreating glaciers) is poised on the very edge of a 1500- foot precipice.
On-line, one can find a myriad of century-old photographs of well-dressed visitors posing beside “Boulder Rock”.
Today, several popular hiking trails lead to this place, and to the sites of former hotels nearby.
https://lostnewengland.com/2022/04/boulder-rock-catskill-new-york
The Kaaterskill Hotel was enormous, containing 600 rooms when it opened in 1881.
The Hotel was enlarged to 1200 rooms, and was the largest hotel in the United States until it was destroyed by fire in 1924.
I have attached an exquisite overview of the Kaaterskill Hotel and its incredible location – and a brief bio of its founder, the Philadelphia patent attorney, George Harding.
https://www.catskillmountaineer.com/history-KH.html
The hotel was built in the “Fried Chicken War”, after the nearby Catskill Mountain Inn declined to prepare fried chicken for the daughter of George Harding who was ill and staying at the hotel with her father.
In a furious debate with the proprietor, George Harding was told to “build your own hotel” if he wanted fried chicken.
Harding proceeded to raise a staggering 1.5 million dollars to do that – and the Kaaterskill Hotel was the result.
On the reverse, Joe reports that “it is rather rainy up here” -but he is undaunted.
Joe adds, “I am managing to have a good time”.
One hopes that Joe enjoyed some sunny days in the mountains and that he and Charlie remained good friends and correspondents.
