The Borscht Belt is coming to Brooklyn for a summer rooftop dance party! Think 1950’s Catskills, but with a 2025 BK makeover. This summer celebration will bring together live music, DJ sets, food, drinks, and Dirty Dancing-inspired activations. Come have the time of your life!

The Borscht Belt hotels were known for their Jewish energy, fabulous entertainment, and summer getaway vibes. Between the 1920s and 1980s, the Catskills mountain region became home to a concentration of hotels, resorts, bungalows, and camps that primarily catered to Jewish families who were not welcomed at most other summer getaways. Catskills, BK is inspired by the creation of spaces where outsiders could get together.

In the Borscht Belt era, Jews weren’t the only ones who needed a place to go. The Catskills were also home to destinations for many other marginalized groups including Black, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and other Latin American communities. Casa Susanna–a bungalow camp for cross-dressing men and transgender women. Catskills, BK believes that welcoming all is a Jewish tradition worth honoring amidst the shtick and shmaltz.

The Borscht Belt has been explored through various projects over the years, most notably including HBO’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. At Catskills, BK, we’ll screen the film, nosh on thematic foods, and enjoy a Dirty Dancing-inspired drag performance.

The Borscht Belt began to decline in the 1960s, and by the 1980s all but a handful were gone. Today, there are few observable signs that this culture ever existed. But the cultural legacy lives on, and explodes on a rooftop in Williamsburg on June 17.

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