Mamakating Park Historic District

The Mamakating Park Historic District is part of a former holiday resort on the highest point of the ridge north of the masts Lakes in the city of Mamakating, New York (State) and is located in the Catskill Mountains.

These include several dozen cottages, which are largely developed in the 1890s and located at the position of a no longer existing hotels as well as some of the buildings from the mid-20th century. These buildings show the basic ideas of the originally much larger-scale construction plan. Mamakating Park was registered in 1998 as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography and building

The historic district includes 40 acres ( 16 hectares) and the horseshoe-shaped linking Columbian Road, Mamakating Avenue and Park Road. The area is largely covered with trees, the former lying in the center of the hotel is the only free space. The tennis courts are still available. A small survey at the southern end of the district reaches a height of 503 m and is the highest point within the city Mamakating.

The district includes 48 buildings, of which originate with the exception of three from the period in which the settlement was originally created. These structures are due to its historical character as contributing. The site of the former hotel and some associated buildings such as a chapel, and the casino are also contributing. From the original landscaping lot is received.

Most of the houses are built in timber frame construction, the architectural style is typical of the late 19th century, for example in the Shingle Style, as the former hotel. They have some of the characteristics of Victorian architecture, such as extensive porches, cross gable and the eclectic use of decorativen elements.

Aesthetics

The plan for Mamakating Park was created by William Henry Baldwin, an engineer from Yonkers. He was there perhaps inspired by Tuxedo Park, the first gated community in the United States in neighboring Orange County. The plan included some winding streets that were named after themes from the forest, about Fox Trail or the unfinished Maplewood Lane, but otherwise rather followed a grid pattern that was typical of camp meetings in nature from that period. Here, the houses are grouped around buildings Community function, in contrast to the winding roads as in Tuxedo Park and similar settlements.

Like many other tourist resorts in the mountains, the location of the houses was arranged so that they exploited the advantages of their position Like. The grid extended northward and southward along a ridge, so that many houses had to be built close to the road, because the terrain drops sharply. So the prospect was away in the direction of the Shawangunk Ridge on Wurtsboro or toward the Catskill Mountains to the north and west.

History

The beginnings of Mamakating Park are in Sullivan County Club, a group of New York businessmen who here wanted to build a similar resort as Elka Park, Onteora Park in Greene County, but created little. For most of the 19th century, the masts Lake to the south owned by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and was used as a water reservoir for the canal. When the railways came up, the traffic went back to the channel and the lake became a destination for day-trippers and summer vacationers from the city, who came here to enjoy the fresh air.

The County Club bought in 1893 by a family from Yonkers 4600 acres ( 1850 hectares) of land, the north of which included the lake and the mountain ridge to build on a settlement with summer cottages that should surround a large hotel. The former extension of the Orange & Western Railroad in the Sullivan County made ​​the area for city dwellers from New York City reached within a day's journey by. After the division of the country in 2000 m² plots the year after they started this at a price of 100 U.S. dollars ( 1894) offer. Since the demand was great, you raised the price soon on 125 U.S. dollars ( 1894).

As 359 plots were sold, the club commissioned the New York architects Delhi & Lawrence with the preparation of the designs for the hotel. The construction of a funicular from Wurtsboro up was considered in order to facilitate the arrival. The delayed economic consequences of the Panic of 1893, however, led to the fact that these plans were dropped. At this time the hotel and about 20 houses were completed on nearby plots.

After the execution against the assets of Sullivan County clubs, the hotel and the parcels not sold in 1902 fell into the hands of a new group of investors with the name Mamakating Park Company. The company applied for the cottage-colony aggressive in the New York papers. The advent of the automobile traffic led to the cottages soon garages were added. The success allows the company to switch 1913 ads, according to which " temperance priniciples will be adhered to" and that the presence of tuberculosis patients is prohibited.

The global economic crisis led in the 1930s to the Mamakating Park Hotel Company and the other objects had to rent out to various operators. Towards the end of the decade, Jewish Americans began to move into the settlement, which led to the other extract. This influenced the construction of the casino, a hairdresser's and a few other buildings in the hotel complex and caused by the Second World War, the founding of Mamakating Park Property Owners Civic Association.

The hotel was eventually closed in the 1950s. A holiday camp operators purchased the estate and used the building. The hotel itself was destroyed in the 1970s by a fire. Some houses were built on the undeveloped land in the 1980s and the late 1990s, the operator began with the reconstruction of some of the earlier buildings.