Eric Schoen, with copy of My View From The Mountains, A Catskills Memoir by Patti Posner
By Eric Wolf Schoen
I read a book last weekend that I started early Saturday morning and read straight through until Sunday at 1:30 a.m. The book is A VIEW FROM THE MOUNTAINS-A Catskills Memoir by Patti Posner published by Hotel Brickman Publishing in Weaverville, North Carolina 2023.
I wrote a review of the book and it was on Facebook Monday night. When I awoke Tuesday morning the response by people throughout the United States was phenomenal. One of those who wrote me suggested that as there is so much trash published today, the book is quite unique and a perfect gift for the holidays, a time of year when we are all running around looking for gifts for those we love and having a hard time finding something special.
Amazon has the book for $14.65 with an E-book version for $10. Perfect stocking stuffer or to put with gifts next to your menorah or Kinara. A quick but enticing read. And you don’t have to be a ‘Catskills Kid’ to enjoy it.
So I thought I would share my review with our Rising Media Group WESTCHESTER readers. Many of you spent time enjoying the beauty of the Catskill Mountains and stayed at the myriad of hotels that ran the gamut from Resorts like Hotel Brickman to ‘cook-a-lanes’ (not sure of the spelling) which consisted of nothing more than a hut with rooms, no amenities of the big hotels where you would ‘cook’ your own meals for your family.
First I will share with you a brief description of the book and topic for those who don’t know what a ‘fa-La-ta’ danish is (a danish taken from the resort breakfast table ‘for later.’ Then I will share my review and comments on the resort (think the movie Dirty Dancing and the hotel where it took place) that I shared with the author and on Facebook. I’ll conclude with some memories I think you will enjoy.
THE BOOK: Much has been written about the Catskill Mountains resort experience as enjoyed by untold numbers of first- and second-generation Jews who, in the early part of the 20th century, had been shut out of many other resorts because of anti-Semitism. While the hotels were indeed as wonderful as many novels and histories describe them, this book is different. It tells a sometimes piercingly honest story of the family that ran the Brickman, one of the most successful Catskills resorts. It is a tale of blood ties as strained by a sometimes ruthless business, explosive secrets, sex and drugs. But this story also is about a deep familial love, hard work, commitment and a winding path to self-knowledge. Patti Posner, daughter of one of the two brothers who ran the hotel, reveals (and thus preserves) the day-to-day life and inner workings of this now vanished world of hospitality, along with the human story behind it all.
MY REVIEW AND COMMENTS: Patti Posner Daboosh it’s rare that I wake up in the morning, start reading a book and finish it and look at my watch and it’s 1:30 a.m. the next day! I truly enjoyed your book and it brought back beautiful memories and tears to my eyes.
My parents, my sister and I spent a wonderful week every summer at Brickman. We got to the hotel as one summer we thought we had reservations at one hotel but they had overbooked. Dad’s friends who spent dawn to dusk on the golf course always raved about the Brickman. We pulled up, you had a room, we took it but my sister was not happy that we were not going to our original hotel and would not leave the room. Dad spoke to Larry Strickler (Director of Activities) who sent a teen counselor to talk with her.
She came down for dinner, got immersed in activities and as they say the rest is history!
I spent the days with my parents even though they had heard of your wonderful day camp. I had just spent 8 weeks at home at day camp and wanted no part of more. We participated in the wonderful activities outlined on a sheet every day, but as for dad, mom and their little boy, me give us that fresh country air, sunshine, a chaise lounge and the big Brickman outdoor pool and we were content, even the last week in August when the pool at times could be chilly.
Dad told me One of the Posner brothers (the owners) told him it was cheaper to feed non-Jews than Jews as non Jews didn’t realize you could have as much from the menu as you wanted. Was the linguini in perch sauce really perch sauce or was it clam sauce. Two things til this day I wonder about!
We truly had the time of our lives at Hotel Brickman. Thanks for the memories and again, great job on the book. I learned through it that there is much more to operating a hotel than herring and cream sauce!
Eric Schoen , Long time guest with his family. President Friends of Yonkers Public Library. Retired Administrator Yonkers Public Schools. Columnist, WESTCHESTER Rising Newspapers (yonkerstimes.com)
SOME MEMORIES: We are still in touch with waiters from the hotel who saved their earnings so they could go to Medical School and receive medical degrees. And families from Yonkers and beyond who stayed at the hotel. The hotel offered nightly entertainment and we saw a young David Brenner and Anna Maria alberghetti perform. You might have seen him in one of the Catskills on Broadway shows or other television shows, but comedian Mal Z. Lawrence was known in the Catskills as a “blue “ or racy comedian. No kids were allowed at the late show, 1 a.m. were he performed. The chocolate milk always tasted better at the hotel than at home as did the oatmeal. Dad’s birthday most often would fall during our week at the Brickman and the hotel would prepare a delicious birthday cake for him. At the end of August the outdoor pool was quite chilly but that never stopped dad and I from taking a dip in the pool and people asking us at dinner, ‘Wasn’t the water cold?’ As a kid I would get a massage in the Massage Room, nothing fancy but a massage table and a man usually in his late ‘70’s or ‘80’s who would give you a massage so soothing that it would, for lack of better words change your world. To this day I will only trust my back to the hands an ‘old timer’ like at Brickman.
Many Catskills hotels would have Singles Weekends, and my uncle Dr. Augustus Wolf (Yonkers doctor) who I am named after would participate and could always be found on the dance patio with someone much younger than he was. We would stop and say hello but that was it. Despite being close family, he did not want us interrupting his dancing and schmoozing with women who he was old enough to be their father!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com, or friend him on Facebook Eric Schoen…just look for him in the picture with Joan Rivers!
