Cuomo Casino Push Seeks to Return Catskills to Past Glory
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Governor Andrew Cuomo’s push to amend New York’s constitution to allow Las Vegas-style casinos may end a 59-year wait for Jackie Horner, whose story of her student “Baby” inspired the 1987 movie “Dirty Dancing.”
In 1954, the owners of the Grossinger’s resort in the Catskill Mountains persuaded the dance instructor to move from New York City on the promise that there would someday be gambling to draw larger crowds from Manhattan. The casinos never came, and Grossinger’s, like many resorts in the once-booming Borscht Belt, struggled and closed. Horner still lives nearby and continues to give lessons at the few hotels that remain.