Growing Up at Grossinger's

From 1919 to 1986, Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel was a premier year-round retreat for New York's (and America's) Jewish population, and it entertained the great, the near great, and the not so great, Jews and Gentiles alike. A melting pot of the Borscht Belt, sports, and show-biz worlds, loyal visitors included Milton Berle, Rocky Marciano, Eddie Fisher, and Jackie Robinson.

In 1945, eight-year-old Tania Grossinger was whisked into the fantastic world of Grossinger's by her mother, Karla, the resort's new social hostess (and a relation of the owners by marriage). From this unique position, she sheds light on how one hotel child kept up with the frenetic pace of life inside the flourishing post-war hospitality industry, and how she came to grips with the outside world (which intruded now and again), sex (word gets around), and, occasionally, her intellectual interests.

Told with irreverence, humor, and a touch of sentimentality, Growing Up at Grossinger's, first published in 1975, offers an intimate portrait of the Catskills resort that hundreds of thousands called a haven, and one girl called home.