Luke J Spencer

Decline of the ‘Dirty Dancing’ Dream

We’ve made a few trips to explore the abandoned resorts of the Borscht Belt of New York. Once places like Grossinger’s, the Concord, Kutscher’s and the Pines, were the epitome of a swanky summer holiday for New Yorkers. All through the Catskills were dozens of all-inclusive resorts, glitzy enough to entice the mostly Jewish, upper-middle […]

The Strange Tale of the Identical Twins’ Mirrored Mansion

Just outside a small, rural Wisconsin farm town, lay the ruins of a grand mansion. In stark contrast to the flat, surrounding fields and scattered barns, was the peculiar sight of a once opulent home that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue during the Gilded Age. For years, mystery surrounded the

How America Became Enamoured with Octagon Houses

© Lombardi Family Explore America’s small towns, and you might be lucky to stumble across a peculiarly shaped house that stands out from its surrounding neighbours by virtue of having eight facades. Back in the middle of the 19th century, there were once thousands of these ‘octagonal’ houses all over America when they were the

The Wholesome Lost World of Competitive Barrel Jumping

©Luke J Spencer Whilst exploring the abandoned Grossinger’s holiday resort in New York’s Catskill mountains one last time before it was torn down, something caught our eye in the crumbling ruins of what had once been the ice skate house. Propped up against the wall was a large wooden sign that had been left behind.

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