Since the 1950s, creatives – and particularly the LGBTQ crowd – have made pilgrimages to this strip of land 51km (30 miles) long off the southern shore of Long Island, to find inspiration, but often for more than that: to feel safe.
It was here, in Carrington House, a wooden beach bungalow and one of only five sites on the United States National Register of Historic Places recognised for a role in LBGTQ history, that Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and Frank O’Hara partied with fellow poets John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch – experiences reflected in seminal poems such as A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island.
O’Hara would be fatally injured on the island in 1966 when he was hit by a dune buggy; the man who ran him down is still one of the 368 year-round residents.
In an era when both queer people and “free thinkers” were ostracised from society, it became a liberal beacon. And the road-free strip of sand remains much as it always was.
There are 17 communities on the island, but centrally located Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines are the main draws for the queer crowd.
A large part of the appeal is the simplicity. There is sand and there are long boardwalks framed by tropical plants that lead to raucous drag pageants taking place on the dance floors of bars that remain open until the sun comes up; that is about it. You either dance or you sunbathe.
It is “a world of desire layered in history, including the Ice Palace bar’s infamous underwear party, the men-only Belvedere Guesthouse, clandestine encounters in the Meat Rack, and landscapes in all seasons of the island’s delicate maritime forest”, according to New York photographer Matthew Leifheit, who “conjures a hedonistic fever dream of Fire Island’s historic gay communities” in the 2022 book To Die Alive.
Everyone on the matrix of boardwalks on the 20-minute walk between Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove says hello and looks excited. Ninety-nine per cent on this late summer visit are men, and 98 per cent are topless.
We pass fliers advertising events featuring Wanda Sykes, the queer actor and comedian who is known to hang out on the island, and medical procedures to increase one’s manhood.
Over the past decade the island has been filled with expensive second homes and, as a day visitor, it is easy to feel left out as you wander the boardwalks, past plush retreats built by opportunistic designers.
Look closer, though, and you will notice that some gates are left open afternoon, evening and night, an invitation to wander into a party taking place around a pool.
Music drifting through palm leaves suggests other parties are taking place behind closed doors.
Amid the restaurants and ice-cream parlours of Cherry Grove, we attend the Grove Hotel’s Miss Fire Island pageant, drag queens parading along a boardwalk that passes above a swimming pool. Groups of men crowd the balconies of the two-storey accommodation block, which wraps around the pool.
It may be overcast and chilly, but the crowd are being warmed by glasses of Rocket Fuel (piña colada with a Bacardi floater), a local speciality.
The hotel is one of only a few on the island, and was booked solid months before the summer began.
“We go to the beach for drinks, sunbathe all day, then we get messed up at some drag show,” explains one guest.
There is a less hedonistic side to the island, though: ad hoc art exhibitions are hosted at Carrington House, in Cherry Grove, which is the closest thing Fire Island has to a cultural centre.
Alas, my party wants to head back to the city on the 9pm Sayville ferry, so I am unable to enjoy the true Fire Island experience by “missing” the last boat.
At Cherry’s On The Bay, the bar adjacent to the Cherry Grove ferry dock, around 100 people are on the waterfront dance floor, some imbibing one last shot of hedonism before the fantasy dissolves during the 30-second walk from bar to boat.
Had I stayed, I have a feeling I would have had no trouble finding a bed for the night.
Ferries depart from Long Island’s Bay Shore, Sayville and Patchogue for 13 terminals on long, thin Fire Island. The journey is about 30 minutes each way.
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