Local documentarian Donna Schatz has a selection of her photography work exhibiting at 9WG studio. With a sense of empathy, she captures a wide range of people in their everyday struggles.
Donna Schatz
9WG Studios – 9 West Grace Street
7:00pm-10:00pm
Hip production studio, 9WG, presents exciting new visual art exhibitions each month for First Fridays and their show for July is no different. The intriguing work of Donna Schatz will compel you to get a block off Broad tonight to see her amazing body of documentary photography. Schatz has worked for many years in film and video as a TV camerawoman and independent producer, shooting in Oregon, Florida, North Carolina, New York, the Middle East and Hungary.
Not to be boxed in by one interest, her film 99 Geiger Road explores the Jewish bungalow communities outside of New York City.
99 Geiger Road
For a good part of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers escaped the heat and mugginess of the city for the country – the Catskill Mountains. Most stayed in bungalow colonies – small clusters of simple cottages – which dotted the mountains less than a hundred miles north of New York City. Also known as the Borscht Belt, this was a vibrant world of ethnic culture and a starting point for many famous entertainers who performed in its hotels and bungalow colonies.
Today, the region is almost a ghost town. With the advent of air conditioning, the suburbs and cheaper airfares, bungalow colonies died out.
Yet, a handful still remain. One group, not often associated with levity, is enjoying life to the hilt in its Catskill summer home. However, the idyll might soon be ending. After 25 years, the Holocaust survivors of the Four Seasons Lodge are about to sell their bungalow colony. It would be the end of a tight-knit community, family to each other, bound together by staggering losses. 99 GEIGER ROAD is an intimate look at a dwindling but feisty community and at a New York and Jewish cultural icon of the 20th century – the bungalow colonies of the Borscht Belt.
Local documentarian Donna Schatz has a selection of her photography work exhibiting at 9WG studio. With a sense of empathy, she captures a wide range of people in their everyday struggles.
Donna Schatz
9WG Studios – 9 West Grace Street
7:00pm-10:00pm
Hip production studio, 9WG, presents exciting new visual art exhibitions each month for First Fridays and their show for July is no different. The intriguing work of Donna Schatz will compel you to get a block off Broad tonight to see her amazing body of documentary photography. Schatz has worked for many years in film and video as a TV camerawoman and independent producer, shooting in Oregon, Florida, North Carolina, New York, the Middle East and Hungary.
Not to be boxed in by one interest, her film 99 Geiger Road explores the Jewish bungalow communities outside of New York City.
99 Geiger Road
For a good part of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers escaped the heat and mugginess of the city for the country – the Catskill Mountains. Most stayed in bungalow colonies – small clusters of simple cottages – which dotted the mountains less than a hundred miles north of New York City. Also known as the Borscht Belt, this was a vibrant world of ethnic culture and a starting point for many famous entertainers who performed in its hotels and bungalow colonies.
Today, the region is almost a ghost town. With the advent of air conditioning, the suburbs and cheaper airfares, bungalow colonies died out.
Yet, a handful still remain. One group, not often associated with levity, is enjoying life to the hilt in its Catskill summer home. However, the idyll might soon be ending. After 25 years, the Holocaust survivors of the Four Seasons Lodge are about to sell their bungalow colony. It would be the end of a tight-knit community, family to each other, bound together by staggering losses. 99 GEIGER ROAD is an intimate look at a dwindling but feisty community and at a New York and Jewish cultural icon of the 20th century – the bungalow colonies of the Borscht Belt.
