Was This the Dirty Dancing Resort? Take In Abandoned Catskills Palace!

New York Yankees great Yogi Berra once said "The future ain't what it used to be" and man was he right.

There is a place here in New York State that, at one time, attracted Hollywood Stars, legendary athletes such as Berra, comedy kingpins and regular folks like you and me. Well over 100,000 people each year would visit this gem that was an inspiration for the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing. Today this "Queen of the Catskills" is gone but not forgotten.

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Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel in Liberty, NY was one of the main inspirations for the film Dirty Dancing starring Jennifer Grey and the late Patrick Swazey but the movie was not filmed in New York State. Many of the scenes were shot in Pembroke, Virginia. and Lake Lure, North Carolina.

In the picture below you can see what remains of the building used as the gymnasium in the final dancing scene of the movie. As for the New York resort, Grossinger's, some could argue that this was the best of the best. Over 1,000 acres featuring a golf course, airport, post office and a 600 room hotel. Today it's in ruins.

It was not unusual to see Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, Milton Berle and other celebrities at Grossinger's. Some were there to perform while others went because it was the place to be seen. The resort itself became famous in 1952 when they were the first resort to use artificial snow on their slopes.

Like all of the classic resorts in the Catskills, times changed and business suffered and and Grossinger's closed it's doors in 1986. The resort buildings were demolished in 2018. Scroll through the pictures below to see what the resort looked like in it's prime and well as the "after" pictures, before demolition.