Tamiment

The Rand School of Social Science was a Socialist institution in New York City, founded in 1906 and governed by the American Socialist Society.[3] The school enrolled five thousand students annually between 1910 and 1920 but often did not have enough capital to cover operating costs.[4] The Lusk Committee, led by New York state senator Clayton Lusk, was investigating what it regarded as "subversive activities" and attempted to close the Rand School by injunction.[4] The school fought and won a costly two-year battle to remain open but, in 1920, its operating capital was at an all-time low.[5] Bertha Mailly, executive secretary of the Rand School, held many fundraisers and was credited for keeping the school afloat.[5] She conceived of the idea of establishing a summer school and camp that would generate enough revenue to support both itself and the Rand School.[5]

In the summer of 1919 Mailly had visited Unity House in Bushkill, PA, a resort operated by a local chapter of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU).[5] While she was there she learned that an adjoining 2,100 acre property was for sale, promptly made a deposit, and successfully raised the money to buy the land and establish a new camp.[5] The facility was named Tamiment, an old Native American word for the area,[5] and would be located less than one hundred miles from New York City.[6]

Camp Tamiment opened on June 21, 1921, and its first visitors were 65 members of Local Allentown, a Socialist party.[7] The camp was designed "to diffuse a general knowledge of literature, art and science through the medium of lectures, publications, and dramatic performances."[8] It earned an operating profit in its first year and became self-sustaining after 1923.[9] Between 1937 and 1956, Camp Tamiment funded between half and three-quarters of the Rand School's annual operating budget.[10] In December 1922 Mailly referred to the camp as a "great aid and inspiration" for the Rand School.[11] She said, "It enabled us to give the young men and women the thing they need, the joy of living to which they are entitled. They study with us. We teach them how to think in the right direction and in their leisure hours, we prove to them that we know how to play."[11]

Camp Tamiment was described as "...the first attempt of Socialists and working people to make for themselves a place for rest, recreation and vacationing."[6] A corporation identified as the People's Educational Camp Society (PECS) was created for the purpose of operating the camp.[12] Author Martha LaMonaco wrote, "Legally, the camp had been established as a separate entity from the school, but the two organizations shared both a common political and social ideology and numerous board members."[13] The PECS board had envisioned Camp Tamiment as a country summer school, but Mailly and manager Ben Josephson chose to turn the facility into a regular resort.[14] Political subjects were progressively downplayed while swimming, tennis, and calisthenics became the most popular activities.[14]

Tamiment served as a destination for Jewish singles from the working and emerging middle class[15] and would be referred to as "a progressive version of the Catskills..."[1] The facility included a 90-acre lake[16] and, in 1947, Tamiment opened an 18-hole golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones.[8][17] The golf course has been ranked among the top 200 U. S. courses by Golf Digest magazine[18] and, beginning in 1959, it was the site of an annual golf tournament hosted by prominent entertainer Danny Kaye.[19][20] Josephson described the Tamiment facility as "a summer resort that has attained top rank in the field, outranking by far many of the privately owned vacation places in both beauty and business."[8]

The camp did not consider itself just a recreational enterprise as it had educational and cultural programs.[10] All of the profits were reinvested in the camp or donated to charitable or educational institutions.[10] These factors allowed Camp Tamiment to have tax-exempt status, which significantly contributed to its success.[10] Author Lawrence Squeri wrote, "Once Tamiment became a money-making resort, it also became a paradox. Ostensibly an institution devoted to the undermining of capitalism, it sought to make money in the best capitalist tradition."[14] In the 1950s, resort guests might not have been aware of Tamiment's political agenda as it was sponsoring seminars offsite in New York City.[21]

The government took notice of Tamiment's tax exemption and would later characterize it as "one of the largest, most modern, and most profitable resorts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."[10] In 1956 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revoked Tamiment's tax-exempt status, ruling that the People's Educational Camp Society's main business was running a summer resort for profit and that its social agenda was secondary.[22] The camp decided to acquire the title to the Rand School's library, the Meyer London Memorial Library and Reading Room, in order to continue its tax exemption.[10] On March 29, 1956, the PECS acquired the title and full ownership of both the Rand School and its library.[10][23] (The PECS dissolved the Rand School while its library, renamed the Tamiment Institute Library, moved into the Bobst Library at New York University in 1973.)[23][24]

After multiple court appeals, the PECS lost its case for tax-exemption, and in 1963 Tamiment's parent corporation had a tax bill of almost ninety thousand dollars.[22] On September 18, 1963, Josephson recommended to the PECS board that the resort be sold,[22] and on June 28, 1965, Camp Tamiment was acquired by a Delaware corporation in a multimillion-dollar deal.[16] Squeri wrote, "Once PECS lost the encumbrance of a commercial enterprise, it quickly regained its tax free status."[22] At the time of the sale, Tamiment was described as "one of the largest resort hotels in the country..." and included over 150 buildings, over 300 employees, a theater that could seat 1,000 people, and a dining room that could seat 1,200.[16]

During the 1970s and 1980s, stars Joan Rivers, Frankie Valli, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Alan King, and Donny and Marie Osmond performed at Tamiment.[2] Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton purchased the resort in 1982 for a reported $15 million and planned to make it the flagship property in a national chain of timeshare hotels.[25] He sold Tamiment in 1987.[26] Lawrence Squeri wrote in 2002 that the facility "no longer has the New York liberal Jewish flavor that made it unique."[22]

In March 2005 Tamiment owner Suong Hong sold the resort for $64 million to developers Greystone Capital Partners of Paoli, Pennsylvania.[20] The firm started auctioning off Tamiment's contents on May 14 with the intention of demolishing the resort buildings.[20] As of 2011, Greystone was planning to build over 200 residential condominiums on the 2,200 acre property.[2] At the time of its sale, Tamiment was considered "...a pillar of the Poconos tourist industry."[2]