Man Alive

The Mating Market (1968x35)

Air date: Oct 09, 1968

Up in the Catskill Mountains, two hours' drive from New York City, stands the Concord Hotel, a vast concrete camp renowned for one speciality-mating. Here most weekends a human hotchpotch of 3,000 men and women pay nearly £ 20 a day to be herded together, like cattle in a market, and forcefully paired off by a social hostess called Rose. Girls living dull city lives plan their robes and their roles weeks ahead; men who are normally office clerks promote themselves to lawyers and doctors. Most of the women are hunting for husbands. Most of the men are not hunting for wives. It's a loud, brassy, boozy free-for-all. But despite the seemingly jolly veneer the more honest among the participants will admit that the whole scene is a sad charade. Even the snow on the ski-slopes was artificial.