This was my second try at what is without a doubt the creepiest place I’ve ever explored. I’m still not sure why, but something about the Paramount Hotel is about as “haunted” as an abandoned building can get. Its history isn’t particularly dark; the hotel expanded and contracted from 1905 to 2000, run for 93 of those years by the Gasthalter family, before burning partially in October 2000, while full to near capacity with 350 guests of a conference on Judaism. While everyone evacuated the hotel without casualties, 1/3 of the hotel had to be removed, including the lobby and restaurants. A new ownership group tried to revive the Paramount and reopen it in 2004, but went bankrupt the night before the hotel was due to open, and it has sat abandoned ever since, slowly decaying after its missed opening day.
This furniture seems to have been awaiting placement in the rest of the rooms … or being scrapped for future use
Probably the least glamorous of the Catskill pools I’ve seen
…even before it became a chemical dump
This seems to have been a rather utilitarian outdoor pool? Or just a place where they never got around to rebuilding?
Room 92 still has its ‘opening’ day inspection checklist
And it’s still kind of, sort of intact
With a Gideons’ bible open to the book of Revelations.
And right about then, we noticed we weren’t alone (again!) and got the hell out of there. We came back in the morning just to see if anything had changed; it turned out to only be scrappers who left a pile of metal on the driveway.
Compared to the other resorts, this one even looks a bit off from the outside.
