Here, one second, let me lock my car.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it'll work from here.

Oh, you can kind of just stroll right in here.

Yeah, you can.

You know, the laurels has been abandoned since 1973.

Well, in 1973, it was foreclosed, and then there was a fire in the 80s. So where we're walking right now has

largely entirely been burned except for the pools. It's a sunny day on Sackett Lake in upstate

New York. I am with my friend Marissa Scheinfeld and we're looking at the remains of what used to be called the

Laurels, the Laurels, Hotel, and Country Club, what was once a wildly popular Jewish vacation

spot. The Laurels was very special. For me, it was the first hotel that I photographed when I started

working on the Borsh Belt around 2011.

I think at the time, I was a little intimidated with exploring abandoned spaces.

I'm Dylan Thuris, and this is Atlas of Skira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Today I go and I walk

around this decaying, overgrown, abandoned resort, a place that was once home to the largest

swimming pool in America, to talk to Marissa Scheinfeld. Marissa is a photographer who's dedicated

years to exploring these lost and abandoned properties

that make up what was once known as the Borscht Belt.

In kind of a few sentences, if you've never heard of it, what is, what was the Borscht Belt?

The preeminent destination for American Jews from the 1930s through the 1980s.

Located in the Catskills, it had everything you could want, daytime, nighttime, food, entertainment,

leisure, culture, tradition, religion if you wanted it, secular activity if you wanted it,

...