Photographs of Fire Island’s Cherry Grove Show Its History as a Gay Sanctuary | Vogue

Contents:

• FIRE ISLAND: A GAY PARADISE OF SEX AND LIBERATN
• THE VERY GAY HISTORY OF FIRE ISLAND
• BEFORE STONEWALL, CHERRY GROVE: HOW A BEACH TOWN BEME A GAY 'SAFE HAVEN'
• “SOMETHG SPECIAL AND UNIQUE AND GAY”: YOUR FIRST LOOK AT FIRE ISLAND
• SUN, SAND, AND SK: FIRE ISLAND’S GAY HAVEN THE NETEEN-SEVENTI
• SWEET ESPE: PHOTOGRAPHS OF FIRE ISLAND’S CHERRY GROVE SHOW ITS HISTORY AS A GAY SANCTUARY
• A GAY GUI TO FIRE ISLAND
• EVERYTHG WE KNOW ABOUT FIRE ISLAND, A NEW GAY PRI AND PREJUDICE ADAPTATN
• FIRE ISLAND GAY TRAVEL

FIRE ISLAND: A GAY PARADISE OF SEX AND LIBERATN

From Osr Wil’s vis to the island 1882, to the steady velopment of Cherry Grove as “Ameri's First Gay and Lbian Town, ” Fire Island has long been a home and haven to LGBTQ visors and rints alike.

Long before the Stonewall Rts set the movement for Gay Liberatn to motn, Fire Island provid an important enclave to rints and visors at a time when almost everythg about livg openly as a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or queer (LGBTQ) person was illegal the Uned Stat. The Cherry Grove Communy Hoe is exceptnally signifint for the enormo role played shapg what gradually evolved to Ameri's First Gay and Lbian Town. As anizatns, the Cherry Grove Property Owners Associatn and Cherry Grove Arts Projects profoundly fluenced the muny's velopment, facilatg the gradual social acceptance, self-affirmatn, and tegratn of s gay and lbian rints to Cherry Grove's erng affairs and civic life.

THE VERY GAY HISTORY OF FIRE ISLAND

This tegratn of LGBTQ rints to daily life and events at s muny hoe afford Cherry Grove a sgular stat; beme the one of the first and, for many years, the only gay and lbian fluenced geography the Uned Stat. Its metamorphosis played out agast turbulent social and polil upheavals -- our natn's rponse to the pre- and early days of the homosexual liberatn movement.

The 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn, which is largely creded as the turng pot the gay civil rights movement, has been documented by numero scholars. Loosely molled on Pri and Prejudice, Kim Booster's film shows Fire Island as a place of ntradictns; a space where you n be your thentic self, and let all hang out among iends, but also an tensely theatril space, where rol are performed, looks (judgmental, flirtat) are exchanged, and six-packs are rom- Fire Island pats a nuanced picture of s eedoms and hierarchi (Cred: Disney+)While readg Jane Aten one summer on Fire Island, Kim Booster "uldn’t help", he wrote a recent say for Pengu, but "map" the experienc of her characters "navigatg the limg social nventns of her time" onto "the siarly tortured social nventns of gay male spac". Edmund Whe, who wrote about a fictnalised versn of Fire Island his 1973 but novel Fettg Elena, not his memoir Cy Boy how the ruals of gay social life there "rhymed my imagatn wh the ruals of medieval Japan or Versaill".

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

Around the same time, queer and artsy folk om the cy were first disverg holiday rentals the small, stic muny of Cherry Grove, talysg a procs that would e to create what anthropologist Esther Newton lls "Ameri's first gay and lbian town". After a 1938 hurrine stroyed many of the ho Cherry Grove, Newton observ her history of the muny, gay men and lbians bought up much of the lots, then gog cheap, om the Long Island fai who prevly owned them.

The Grove's more upmarket neighbour, Fire Island P, was veloped later, the 1950s, as a "fay-iendly" muny, although this label didn't last for very long, spe the fact that numero gay homeowners had moved there om the Grove the hop that would act as a more discreet enclave.

How did one particular summer settlement on Fire Island bee a ‘safe haven’ for gay men and lbians almost nety years ago, s before the uprisg at Stonewall Inn? It is the se of one of the olst gay and lbian muni the Uned Stat, suated wh two neighborg hamlets — Cherry Grove and the Fire Island P.

“SOMETHG SPECIAL AND UNIQUE AND GAY”: YOUR FIRST LOOK AT FIRE ISLAND

Durg the 1930s actors, wrers and craftspeople om the New York theatril world began headg to Cherry Grove, s remote and stic quali allowg for gay and lbians to exprs themselv eely — far away om a world that rejected and persecuted them. And they are joed by Parker Sargent, a documentary filmmaker and one of the curators of Safe Haven: Gay Life 1950s Cherry Grove, a new exhibn at the New-York Historil Society, highlightg photography om the llectn of the Cherry Grove Archiv Collectn. 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.

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. 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. 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.

SUN, SAND, AND SK: FIRE ISLAND’S GAY HAVEN THE NETEEN-SEVENTI

” 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.

” Today, Cherry Grove remas a beloved summer statn for LGBTQ beachgoers, particularly lbians, as has the adjog muny of the Fire Island P, which has tradnally tered to gay men. Matthew Leifhe’s “To Die Alive” is an arrtg portra of an endurg gay 15, 2022Photographs by Matthew LeifheThe name is the first thg to announce self: a landmass ablaze, s flam tracg back to tal of beach l by swamp fir or Native Amerin signals to the maland.

SWEET ESPE: PHOTOGRAPHS OF FIRE ISLAND’S CHERRY GROVE SHOW ITS HISTORY AS A GAY SANCTUARY

The imag are arranged by lotn, begng wh the eroticized terr spac of Cherry Grove and the P, and endg on the beach, via the wood g of the Meat Rack, a famo cisg spot that ss Island is a stock figure for a certa kd of gay utopianism, but Leifhe is attuned to the variety of cultural meangs that have been scribed on the place by those who have vised. Edmund Whe, for stance, has wrten that the ruals of gay men there, om afternoon tea danc to sex at dawn, “rhymed” his imagatn “wh the ruals of medieval Japan or Versaill. The spot is sometim lled the Judy Garland Memorial Park, a name that suggts, only half jokgly, that wild public sex is a nsummate act of the gay experience, jt as Garland is the nsummate mp in.

A GAY GUI TO FIRE ISLAND

Like the “two boys together clgg” on the “sea-beach dancg, ” om Walt Whman’s utopian visn of Ameri’s homosexual future, the scene offers a simple exprsn of timacy and solidary a place that remas a particular kd of refuge. “We ma somethg really, really special and unique and gay, ” Fire Island star and scribe Joel Kim Booster tells me over the phone, about six months after that ferry ri.

EVERYTHG WE KNOW ABOUT FIRE ISLAND, A NEW GAY PRI AND PREJUDICE ADAPTATN

”In a world where queer ntent typilly skews toward the treacly (thk Love, Simon), or the tragic (thk The Power of the Dog), makg a story about gay love for a major movie stud is self somethg of a radil act. ’” Booster shelved the ia for years, only for to reemerge an say he wrote for a now funct blog about his nnectn to Aten as a gay man.

FIRE ISLAND GAY TRAVEL

Fire Island is the exceptn to the le of our liv, the same way that a gay romantic edy wh four Asian Amerin stars is an exceptn to the le of Hollywood. “I thk that there are so many movi about the gay experience that are ght wh people who are unsure if they’re happy beg gay or stgglg wh g out….