Ellenville, an eastern gateway to the Borscht Belt, attracted visitors from the 19th century onward. In 1901, the Slutsky family opened the Nevele and Fallsview hotels, which offered a picturesque valley setting, a waterfall, and extensive amenities. The Nevele’s 10-story tower, skating rink, and bas-relief sculpture reflected the modernist architecture movement of the mid-20th century. At its peak in the 1950s, Ellenville had 20 bungalow colonies and 29 hotels, including Jans, Kleinman’s, Sun Ray, Zisselman’s, Arrowhead Lodge, Breeze Lawn Hotel, Echo Hotel, and Melbourne Hotel, and it was also home to Mount Cathalia, a Chinese American ski resort. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson, the only sitting president to visit the Catskills, dedicated a hospital in Ellenville with Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and both stayed at The Nevele. Stand-up comedy originated in the Borscht Belt, where performers including Lenny Bruce, Red Buttons, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, Gilbert Gottfried, Susie Essman, Shecky Greene, Mal Z. Lawrence, Bill Maher, Jackie Mason, Marilyn Michaels, and many others appeared. From the 1920s through the early 1970s, the Borscht Belt was the leading summer resort destination for hundreds of thousands of predominantly East Coast American Jews. Exclusion from existing establishments in the 1920s led Jewish entrepreneurs to create more than 500 resorts, 50,000 bungalows, and 1,000 rooming houses in Sullivan County and parts of Ulster County. The Borscht Belt provided a sense of community for working and vacationing Jews and strongly influenced American entertainment, music, and sports, but beginning around 1960 it entered a gradual decline because of factors including the growth of suburbia, inexpensive airfare, and generational changes.