Narrowsburg history brought to the screen

Local filmmaker chronicles the story of a not-so-lucky lake

NARROWSBURG, NY — On Saturday, December 9, Narrowsburg-based filmmaker Tina Spangler will premiere her short documentary “Lucky Lake” at Signature Gifts at the Arts Center, at 37 Main Street. Spangler will introduce the 1:00 p.m. screening, and the film will loop continuously until 3:30 p.m.

“Lucky Lake” chronicles the previously untold story of Sullivan County’s Luxton Lake, a thriving vacation spot primarily for black New Yorkers in the 1950s, which was drained two decades ago under painful and little-understood circumstances. The dramatic story begins in the 1920s, when the Upper Delaware Valley was accessible by passenger train and was populated with modest boarding houses. Mabel Huebner, whose family ran the Homestead Boarding House on the Ten Mile River, recalls “City people used to come and stay. They’d say, ‘As soon as we go back to the city we start putting money in a jar for next summer.’”

The plot thickens in 1954 as a group of African-American developers set their sights on Luxton Lake, renaming it “Lucky Lake,” and marketing it as a vacation community for black New Yorkers looking for an escape to the country. Working-class families and celebrities alike constructed cabins along the shore of the two-mile lake. Local residents recall the heyday when the Lucky Lake Community Club House became a popular nightspot, with a reputation for jazz and alcohol, in equally generous abundance.

But in the 1980s, the community proved to be not so lucky when the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation demanded the removal of Lucky Lake’s 100-year-old stone dam. The lake was drained in 1983, and almost 25 years later, residents of Luxton Lake are still fighting to get their lake back.

Spangler, who has produced work for Sundance Channel and PBS, said, “‘Lucky Lake’ is the first chapter of a feature-length documentary I’m making about the community’s current efforts to revive this area.” The project is funded in part by the Sullivan County Arts and Heritage Program and the Decentralization Program of the New York Council on the Arts, and sponsored by the Tusten Historical Society and Women Make Movies.

In addition to the screening of “Lucky Lake,” a photo album of images and articles on the lake will also be on view. Representatives of the Luxton Lake Property Owners Association will be present to discuss the current status of the lake and how members of the community at large can get involved.

Admission is free.

For more information visit www.ArtsAllianceSite.org or call 845/252-7576.