Tales of the Sinclair - 2 - The Sinclair Pool
A memoir of Bethlehem’s Heyday by Dave Goldstone
Part Two - The Sinclair Pool
Harry “Pool” at the Sinclair Hotel
At around 9:30am I would see Harry coming to the pool deck. He would be wearing a terry tee shirt, Bermuda shorts, tennis sneakers and a lanyard with a whistle around his neck. He wore one of a dozen different hats from sailor hats, to bowlers, to sombreros. It was part of his “shtick.”
It was the beginning of the season and Harry came down to the pool deck with about two dozen cotton dress shirts. Harry methodically arranged the chaises, tables and chairs and put his shirts on some of the chairs and loungers in the “prime” locations, followed by ash trays and pool towels.
Although no one had come to the pool at this early hour, it looked as if people had been there and left with their clothes on the chairs and tables. This was how Harry reserved your spot at the pool!
Hidden in his pool shack Harry kept wood and metal chaise lounges with springs and thick mattresses for his “special guests” He would not take them out unless the guests were to agree to a minimum $1 per day gratuity. The good tippers had their favorite spot on the pool deck “reserved” with Harry’s shirts, complete with padded lounges little drink tables with ash trays and hotel bath towels supplied with Harry’s “private stock’ instead of the standard thin pool towels. When new people came on one of the Sinclair’s advertised weekend packages, Harry was brazen enough to charge them outright 25c/chair and 50c/lounge/ I would hear his booming voice across the pool deck “DAVE…WEEKENDERS” and I was to bring them the chairs C.O.D.
Harry kept busy talking to people playing checkers with the guests at which he was a professional. He entertained the guests by throwing ice cubes into the pool on hot days and pouring a coffee pot of hot water into the pool when a guest was cold. He was constantly changing hats whistling for the sun to come out behind a cloud and joking around with guests and staff , but if you questioned his motives or criticized him, it could get quite ugly…
The pool was the jewel of the Sinclair, along with the food, the Catskill comics, and the pollen free Bethlehem Air, it was the reason to be there. In the past all hotel’s great outdoor events occurred around the pool including afternoon and evening dancing cocktails and evening pool parties. When I was working there an old gent by the name of Leonard “Ducky” Duckman would play the old tunes from the Jimmy Durante days.
The hotel’s MC Ethel Roth would come out and sing and give simple dancing lessons.
The Sinclair pool, jewel of the White Mountains
On Sunday morning you could hear the bells of the Durrell Methodist Church ringing and like clockwork Harry Pool’s loudspeaker voice would retort: “Ladies! Mikvah services will commence in 10 minutes…!...every Sunday…”
On Sunday it was quiet at the pool many people were checking out after lunch before the new guests checked in for dinner. Harry was stationed at the door as they checked out. No one was to leave without “remembering Harry”. He called it “Palm Sunday”.
Some people loved Harry but many hated him. The days of the wealthy big tippers had all but past. People were taking their own bags up to their rooms and were “sneaking out” rather than checking out, again to avoid having to tip the bellhop and the door man .So “why do I have to tip Harry to sit by the pool?”
..and then there was Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Cohen came to the Sinclair on the holiday weekends: July 4 or Labor Day. He was Harry’s nemesis, at least one of them. Mr. Cohen was not just a non-tipping “stiff”. He would complain to Mr. Herrman that Harry was extorting all the guests just to sit by the pool.
Harry took it very personally. He knew when Mr. Cohen checked in and planned accordingly. In the morning he would have every chair and lounge on the deck covered with his shirts with towels and ash trays. Any extra chairs and lounges we hid in the back of the pool shack. Then we had one webbed chair that was bent and missing some webbing. We called it “Mr. Cohen’s chair” and placed it prominently in the sun close to the center of the pool. The game was to get Mr. Cohen to sit in that chair.
As the day progressed Harry greeted the guests and found them places to sit, taking out special lounges from the back for his high rollers, etc. In mid afternoon Mr Cohen arrives in his bathing suit. “Hello Harry (as if they were old friends..) any place I can sit..?”
“ Hello Mr. Cohen! Good to see you again! You can sit any where you like. Any available seat….”
Harry came over by the Life guard’s chair and we stood and watched Mr. Cohen peruse through the tables, chairs and chaises, looking for one that wasn’t occupied or covered with stuff. We already knew there wasn’t any. Finally he eased himself gingerly onto the broken chair at the poolside. Our weekend was a success…!
It was clear that I was witnessing the end of a hotel area in Bethlehem, where Jewish families would come together and bring their unique culture and customs with them. I am sure that in the past, many of the dining room staff and the bellman were the children of guests on their summer vacation and many long term relationships were nurtured there amongst the staff as well as the guests. Mr. Herrman had started as a bell boy at his Aunt and Uncles hotel and met his wife Dotty who worked as a waitress there.
In three years at the Sinclair I met exactly one Jewish woman my age, a granddaughter of one of the guests. However, I was not her type.
Although the Sinclair closed for the season after Labor Day. It would stay open an extra week when Rosh Hashanna arrived that early in the season. This would greatly increase attendance at BHC in those years.
The “Catskill Style of Hotel Service” was dying out. People who came up for relief from hay fever often found relief in Europe or stayed in Florida, where at least they had air conditioning, or took “Allerest” and other antihistamine medications. Newer resorts had direct dial telephones, air conditioning and TV’s in the rooms and modern private bathrooms.
Harry Pool admitted to me at the age of 62 that having worked his whole life in resort hotels in Bethlehem and Miami for cash, that he had never paid income taxes or social security and needed a” real job.”
The doors of the Sinclair closed for good in the mid 70’s. “The New Agassiz Hotel” which contained the nightclub and the Fairlawn was sold to “The Villa” and became a successful nightclub. The Main building, with its 175 guest rooms and swimming pool on 10 Acres in the center of town, did not get a single bid at auction. About two years later, the empty buildings caught fire and burned to the ground. Only the remnants of the Sinclair Pool remain.
One of the last managers of the Crawford House obtained the Sinclair guest list and tried to entice them to Crawfords. That business lasted one year and then the Crawford House also closed its door and auctioned off the building in parts down to its wooden shell…
In 1976 the remaining hotels of that era were up for sale. It was the last year for the Perry House, a hotel enclave in back of the Sinclair with “Glatt” kosher cuisine. In addition to its own pool it had the Perry Playhouse where the Weathervane Theater Company would perform once a week. Just west of the Bethlehem Country Club was the Alpine Hotel and Highland Hotel Annex. This was sold with the new owners catering to the Chassidic Jews that were now coming in increasing numbers. The Arlington Hotel had been under Chassidic ownership for the past 15 years.
The old Park View Hotel and Columbia Annex had already been sold to Chassidim and the rooming houses such as Sherman’s, Rosenthal’s, and Steiner’s (the Buckeye) all had Chassidic guests. Where the Strawberry Hill Hotel and Howard House once stood were empty fields that were eventually turned over to the town.
Since those years I moved on to work at the Mount Washington for nine seasons, the Balsams, The Breakers in Palm Beach, and the Belview Biltmore in Belair Florida, before I got my “real job” in NYC government.
The hotel season in Bethlehem was short, 10 weeks from July 4 to Labor Day, or occasionally, until Rosh Hashana. At the height of the fall foliage in early October, all of these summer hotels were closed.
In the Sanctuary of BHC one of the large Yartzeit Plaque Holders was donated by David Spiwack and Pauline Leander in memory of their parents Dora and Abraham Spiwack, who had owned the “New Agassiz Hotel”. The summer resort business was a 7 days per week job. Your time off came on closing day. I doubt that many of the hotel owners ever came to the Synagogue but records show that they contributed to BHC and hosted events, such as sisterhood luncheons and fund raisers. Many BHC members listed their address as the Sinclair, Perry House, Strawberry Hill, Alpine or the Park View Hotel.
Any of my Jewish acquaintances in New York who knew where New Hampshire was knew Bethlehem. For Jews, Bethlehem was scenic, therapeutic and most importantly, unrestricted. It had great food and entertainment like the Catskills, but with pollen free air
We lived a whole year for those summer days…
Read Part 1 here