Remains of abandoned 'Borscht Belt' resorts of Upstate New York hotels
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The abandoned summer resorts of Upstate New York's Sullivan and Ulster counties are a ghostly, eerie and bizarrely beautiful reminder of the halcyon days of the holiday playground known as the Borscht Belt.
Popular with the middle class Jewish community, hence the nickname, and within easy driving distance from New York City, they were the height of glamour and recreation for families heading to the Catskills.
Those unfamiliar with the area need look no further than the film Dirty Dancing, for which it's the setting, or better still this series of stunning images.
Many of the area's finest hotels, that were at the peak of their pomp in the 1960s, have simply been left to rot these days yet maintain much of their majesty in these pictures.
Artist Marisa Scheinfeld grew up near the Catskills in Sullivan County and has an exhibition of deserted Catskills accommodation showing at Yeshiva University Museum until April 2015. She says that their existance now is just as magnificant as their heyday. 'While the ruins can seem like tragic examples of the passing of an era, they're also very much alive,' she told the New York Post.
'Devoid of their original intentions - as hotels for Jewish Americans from the East Coast - the hotels have in many ways been repurposed, and are being used as respites for animals or for nature. Abandoned by people, they're still vital active forces being used in unexpected ways.'
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An abandoned pool at the Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel in the Town of Liberty, one of the grander venues in the of the area which closed its doors in 1986
A battered hallway and abandoned pool lounges at the Grossinger's Resort, which was in operation from 1919 until 1986
The former Homowack Lodge in Wurtsboro village in the town of Mamakating, Sullivan, had its own bowling alley
The Homowack bowling lanes were once a hive of activity but now it is just gathering dust
A self-portrait of the photographer Bellink relaxing in one of the Grossinger's emptied swimming pools that once offered relief from the summer heat
Jonathan Haeber's works, including the above image of a large room with a toy rocket as the focal point, feature in the book Grossinger's: City of Refuge and Illusion
A dismal site now, Grossinger's is shown deserted and surrounded by snow
The lounge of the Homowack hints at an interior that was not shy about colour
A sign of the times with this turntable in this shot from Bellink
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