Before Stonewall, Cherry Grove: How a Fire Island beach town beme a gay 'safe haven'

Contents:

• FIRE ISLAND GAY BEACH
• BEFORE STONEWALL, CHERRY GROVE: HOW A BEACH TOWN BEME A GAY 'SAFE HAVEN'
• GAY FIRE ISLAND

FIRE ISLAND GAY BEACH

Fire Island Gay BeachCherry Grove3. 5Audience RatgBased on 2 votCherry Grove is the historic gay centre of Fire Island.

If you head to the beach area between Cherry Grove and the P you'll fd the gay sectn. It's a b too early to h the bars and the sun is out: get your booty down to the gay beach. A few away, was said to be a welg muny of gay people.

Hartmann walked down, and what she saw is on display at a new exhib at the New-York Historil Society, as well as chronicled the 1993 book “Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years Ameri's First Gay and Lbian Town” by Esther Newton.

BEFORE STONEWALL, CHERRY GROVE: HOW A BEACH TOWN BEME A GAY 'SAFE HAVEN'

Hartmann, now 90, was terviewed for the exhib, “Safe/Haven: Gay Life 1950s Cherry Grove, ” which opens Friday at the New-York Historil Society, on Manhattan's Upper Wt Si.

And I’m gay. Hot Hoe, Grove Archiv CollectnCherry Grove was one of the first gay beach towns the Uned Stat, jog a handful of LGBTQ vatn spots and rorts that beme popular the pre-Stonewall era, along wh plac like Provcetown, Massachetts, and Sgatuck-Douglas, Michigan. In Cherry Grove, gay rints were able to form a muny, have a voice how thgs were n and be out.

Cherry Grove Archiv CollectnCherry Grove was different om the cy, where the gay bars were n by the mob, acrdg to Sargent, who scribed the urban waterg hol as “dark and seedy clubs” where “you always had to be reful that the lights would e on, ” signalg a police raid.

GAY FIRE ISLAND

” Cherry Grove ntued to evolve after the 1950s, movg om a sanctuary for mostly whe and affluent gay men and women to a more clive place wh the advent of the 1960s, as the civil rights movement gaed tractn and more mercial real tate the area led to affordable hog optns for greater swaths of the muny.

"Cherry Grove Archiv CollectnPart of the missn behd “Safe/Haven: Gay Life 1950s Cherry Grove” is to create an archive where there has been none. “It's gettg that material out there for people to see and to rewre our history a way that has been very blank bee we tend to thk that gay life started at Stonewall.

… People have a look at gay history before Stonewall.