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[0:00] Unknown speaker: The Pines is more like Hell's Kitchen Chelsea gays, and The Grove is more West Village. You know, lesbians and bears, oh my. I love whenever Pines boys come over to The Grove. Cherry Grove is for the lesbians, and it is, but it's, I would say it's more like the misfits. The drag queens, it would be the like crunchier gays, the radical fairies. So the way I would describe the difference between The Pines or The Grove to someone who hasn't experienced it, is in The Grove, everyone says hi. In The Pines, everyone is hi. Sorry, that's my official party line. Saturday nights belong to Cherry Grove and the Ice Palace. Cherry Grove would be like the West Village, or even like Bushwick. It's very the cubbyhole.

[0:50] Jess Rothschild: I am your host, Jess, and this is Finding Fire Island, Episode 2, Cherry Grove. In this episode, we're going deep on the birth of disco and drag at the Ice Palace, its queer female population, and the hetero bachelorette parties which take over on weekends. But first, let's discuss the quaint cottages that comprise this groovy little village.

[1:15] Unknown speaker: So in Cherry Grove, it is a longtime tradition for people to name their houses. Oftentimes, people buy a house, they keep the name, because maybe it seems like a tradition, or maybe it just speaks to them. Filmmaker Parker Sargent has been living in Cherry Grove ever since she discovered it to be very welcoming to trans people. A great example is we have a house in Cherry Grove called Pride House. And it's one of the oldest houses everyone thinks that is called Pride House because of gay pride. But no, it's called Pride House because it was initially attached with a little house on the side. And it was called Pride and Prejudice. But when those houses got separated, the women that bought this house called Prejudice did not want to keep their house name.

So they changed their house. So some people keep it, some people change it. Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I'm actually going to be staying in one of the Tweedles this summer. I'm not sure which one. A Whole New World, which has Princess Jasmine and another Disney princess together on the gate. One of the houses that I go to called Above and Beyond, but we call it Above and Beyonce, otherwise known as Beyonce. I love that there is a house called May's Bush. I don't know who lives there. My name is Catherine, but people call me Kate sometimes. And I always wanted a house called Kate's Bush. You've got both Kate Bush and, well, the rest of it. But that is my favorite house name. The house naming is a tradition dating back to the earliest cottages in the early 1900s, simply because there were no house numbers in this tiny village. Cottage names are derived from, well, anything, so long as they have some kind of campy innuendo like Chalet of the Dolls or Venus Envy.

[3:10] Diane Romano: I was president of the Cherry Grove Community Association for 12 years and have been living here since the late 1970s. The cottages years ago, people used to say Cherry Grove's a little funky. And it probably was because Cherry Grove started to have, it turned out to be like fishing shacks. So the people who were fishing, they would build these little shacks. They started to become these cute little funky kind of places because we were much more of the artist community, kind of outrageous artists, gay guys and women and dressing up and being funny and being silly. And that was more our vibe. The more successful, wealthier people wound up in the pines. So it had that different vibe.

[4:02] Christopher Rawlins: I'm an architect and interior designer. And while I literally wrote the book titled Fire Island Modernist focused on the architecture of the pines, I still have a sweet appreciation for the Grove cottages. They took these simple cottages and adorned them with Victoriana and bric-a-brac and artful names and so forth. And it was camp. And I call the architecture in Cherry Grove really a form of drag. And actually, to extend that metaphor a bit, think about what happens with gay culture in the late 60s and 70s and the aesthetic changes. We go from a kind of drag, campy female impersonation sensibility to the Levi's and flannel and the muscles and the mustaches and the hairy chests and the bronze skin.

But I think a lot of the men who lived through that period recognized on some level the performativity of that. It was really just a hyper masculine form of drag. And I think we can understand the architecture of both Cherry Grove and the pines in almost drag terms. On the one hand, Cherry Grove is maximalist and extra and over the top. And the pines is muscular and stripped down and austere in its way. But yet there's still a place for a kind of dramatic sensibility in both forms of architecture. But then what started to happen is that more and more people came in, got more and more interested in their homes, started to develop gardens, put some heat in the house, buy nicer furniture. It wasn't just kind of a shack to hang out in on the weekend and have a good time at the beach.

It was now something that was my second home. Understand that in Cherry Grove, people had barely enough money to have a second home back in the 40s and 50s. And so there was a kind of DIY sensibility to it all. It's all kind of just slapped together. And rather than bemoan that, I think there's kind of a celebration of the kitschiness and the kind of temporality of that. And I love it. And I think that there's a lighthearted quality to it that we can appreciate. And yeah, you know, they put a coat of paint on and it flakes away, just like glue gun sequins on a homemade dress. That's the point.

[6:30] Unknown speaker: In the summer of 1946, folks on Cherry Grove arranged to have an old barn floated across the Great South Bay and have it hauled to a spot just west of the dock. At first, the barn was a firehouse and a meeting room. Just two years later, the creativity exploded, turning it into a theater. Immediately, we had the arts project and theater productions happening. I mean, there are productions of theatrical works and musicals from 1948 that I saw. And look, I mean, a lot of gay people are in the artist world. I know there were a lot of people who wound up being extremely successful. Today, the Cherry Grove Community House and Theater stands as the oldest LGBT theater in the United States and possibly the world.

So what goes on in this community house and theater exactly? Throughout the years, the calendar is filled with fundraisers, galas, balls, drag shows and community theater productions. Today, it's grown to include yoga classes and is the host of the Cherry Grove Film Festival. In the 1950s and 60s, many of the community shows were parodies of the biggest Broadway shows at the time. They did a drag version of South Pacific. Whatever they were doing in the city, they did a Grove version of, playing with gender and sexuality.

[8:03] Cherry Grove legend Rose Levine: The first night I went to Fire Island, I went to a cocktail party and met people that I did not know. The next thing I go to a show and most of those people that I met the night before were in the show. And I was always, I always wanted to be in show business. And I said, how do I get into a show? See, initially, these were mostly amateurs with professional careers in the city, but they couldn't wait to get on stage and perform for their peers. So I saw the show and then went backstage and met people. And then we became friends and I never left the island. I've stayed there every weekend and rented eventually because I couldn't stay with my friends. They had other guests that they wanted to invite out.

And I stayed there for the season. And where would you get the costumes from? Well, at the beginning, I had no costumes, so I needed a wig. I went to Woolworths and bought a skein of yarn and I made a wig out of it. I borrowed heels from someone. I lived at home and my mother would put things in the garage that she didn't need. And I'd sneak in there and take things and put it back when I came home from Fire Island. And I'd go in through the garage and nobody would see me. And there was a drapery that they were throwing out or putting it was in the garage. And I took it as a cape. Very early on, when I performed, I had good taste and I didn't want to look frumpy because most of the drag started as frumpy drag.

And I had friends that were out on Fire Island that were designers and I was thin and I fit into the sample size and they gave me their beautiful dresses to wear, which are returned on Monday. I always had the best looking dresses.

[10:15] Unknown speaker: Flash forward to the late 60s, where 17-year-old Pansy is about to dabble in performance drag for the first time in New York City. Back then in the 60s and early 70s, Greenwich Avenue was the place to go as opposed to Christopher Street. All of the cafes were gay. It was just where we all hung out. So I got to know a group of people my own age. And one day, one of them decided to do, let's do a drag show. And I'm thinking, what is a drag show? And I was still in high school at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City and living with mom and dad. But I went every Sunday. I don't know how I got away with it. I was Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minnelli. I did a few other impersonations. But that was when I got into drag full time.

And how did you get the name Pansy? Well, I met a lover named Max and he had a group of friends and they all had names for each other. And one of them said, well, if you're going to stick around, we have to have a name for you. And I'm thinking, what the hell do I say? So I remember saying, well, before I retired from show business, my name was Daisy. And somebody said, Daisy, you're more like a Pansy. And the five of them just thought that was the silliest thing. And they all started calling me Pansy. And I hated it. And somehow or other, it just kind of spread into Cherry Grove. I have no idea how, but nobody knew my name was Tom. Everybody called me Pansy. Everybody. So that's how I got it. I was stuck with it. I couldn't get rid of it.

[12:04] Unknown speaker: Pansy's name is now synonymous with the invasion, the annual July 4th event, which we're going to go deep on in a later episode. So here are some fun facts about the very early days of Cherry Grove. In the early 1920s, many of the lots were purchased for two hundred and fifty dollars or less by Seville families, the Long Island town just across the bay. And the very first boardwalks were built in 1929. However, a decade later in 1939, there was a terrible hurricane which washed away half of the cottages. Only one oceanfront cottage survived, which is still named the Hurricane House. So this begs the question, how did this evolve from a Seville fishing village to a thriving gay community? Pansy told me how the Seville family stayed and lived amongst the gay population, which were now the majority of renters.

I don't know. The Seville family stayed, many of them. And the gay community came. Friends started inviting friends and the word started to spread within the secret community. And it just never got publicized anywhere that it was a vacation spot. Back in the 50s, you know, if you were gay, you'd be listed as a communist. It could be blacklisted from everything. See, young professionals in Manhattan couldn't find out about Cherry Grove on the radio or in newspapers or magazines. Not yet. News traveled only through the underground grapevine in New York's gay bars and at private parties where gays learned about Fire Island, where people like them could go. It was only toward the end of the 50s where news spread in print about Cherry Grove's existence.

I mean, we're talking very serious ramifications. If you like went to the meat rack and got arrested, they would put your name publicly in all the newspapers telling what you did. So, you know, the police weren't all in on it, but it was a terrible time to be gay. You know, so this was this great little secret place.

[14:02] Unknown speaker: Did you ever hang out in the pines in the late 60s, early 70s? I had heard not very nice things about it. Basically, I was taught by the gossip that the pines was high and mighty and they looked down on the Grove and they were all closeted homosexuals and they were all very rich. And I had this great social life in Cherry Grove. Why would I go someplace else?

[14:21] Filmmaker Mike Fisher: I first went to Cherry Grove in 1985. I told me that I wanted to go to, quote, the trashiest gay community in the United States. And I chose Cherry Grove. Cherry Grove is very inclusive of everyone. And there was no sort of brand for it. Like the pines has a brand. They're very committed into cis white, muscly boys, not older guys. The Grove was much more accepting and multiracial women, men. The Grove has always just been nuts and crazy and insane. Like, you see the

[14:58] Boudoir LeFleur: Like, sometimes I'm out there and I can't even, you see people like walking naked down the boardwalk. It's just crazy. And I think it goes back to that thing when we were talking about, is this community necessary? And it is necessary, because that sort of exemplifies the freedom that you feel when you're in Cherry Grove, that you can walk into town in a g-string or in drag or in all leather drag, whatever you want to be, it's accepted.

[15:39] Boudoir LeFleur: While drag basically started in Cherry Grove, going out in drag was actually illegal and people were getting arrested for cross-dressing. So much so that they used to hide women's clothing in floorboards in between parties. Before there was electricity and running water in the early 60s, this is how they made their own fun on the island. So every weekend there were themed dinner parties. I've heard this story multiple times that someone decided to have a hat party. So they all went to the city, got hats, and they all threw a dinner party wearing a hat. The next weekend they decided to have a high heel party. They went to the city, got high heels, did the same thing. The third night they were like, okay, let's just do drag.

So they went to the city, got women's clothing, and had a party in full drag. On the way home, two of the people were arrested, handcuffed to poles in Cherry Grove, taken off, and written up in Sayville for lewd and lascivious behavior. At the time, it was illegal not just to dress in drag, but to have a piece of women's clothing in your house. So they literally built a hatch in the center of their living rooms in a lot of the old houses, and they would hide their drag down there, and they would cover it with a rug. It is this very story that inspired Mike Fisher to create his great documentary, Cherry Grove Stories.

[17:01] Boudoir LeFleur: As drag gained popularity and queens became household names all over the world, I think he found the one thing that unites everyone across the Grove and the Pine. The pure distaste for hetero weekend day trippers looking for a sideshow. Saturdays and Sundays during the day are day tripper central for sure. In fact, most of the people who live there for the full summer pretty much hide during the days on the weekends and then come out at night. And it is a whole different crowd. It's a lot of bachelorettes and a lot of straight girls getting wasted.

[17:35] Boudoir LeFleur: Listen, if you come to one of our brunch shows and you're wearing a wig, I'm telling you, I'm going to snatch it. There are times there are a table of like 10 or 17 girls and it's like, she's getting married. It's like, oh my God, is she getting married? I never guessed that like purple and pink wigs and the sashes didn't give it away. And honestly, they love it. It's fun. That's why they come. I mean, maybe this is controversial. I hate straight culture in Cherry Grove. I just, I do. There are very few queer spaces left. And it's particularly, I feel important now when we are actually under siege, particularly our trans brothers and sisters. We need a space where we can be free. And I get, I would want to hang out with us too.

But there's something about the taking over of it that concerns me. I know that some of the business owners and you have to make a living. I'm not faulting that. But some of the business owners particularly advertise to straight communities to come over and, you know, have the sideshow. And I wish they wouldn't. This is nothing new. This is exactly how it has always been. Always.

[18:50] Boudoir LeFleur: When I was 20, we started a group called the Cherry Grove Terrorist Society. I think it was called to try to get the straights out. But it's nothing new. In 1979, there was, well, there was an old bar called the Sea Shack. And then it was bought by someone and they made it the Copa. Now they advertised on WPIX and all over the place. So everybody came from the city. So the boards were filled with straight couples in the late 70s. And here we are 50 years later. And it's no different. Many times I get on a water taxi and a gang of straight girls would get off the water taxi. Where are you going? I'd say, oh, they're going with a bachelorette party or a birthday. And they like to come to Cherry Grove because they see a drag show. They're loose in Cherry Grove where they can't be that loose in Ocean Beach and they party.

[19:56] Boudoir LeFleur: As part of the gay community, I think people really underestimate that. If you are someone that has a voice as in a microphone in your hand and you can talk to people, this is your chance to communicate to some of these people who aren't necessarily in our community and show them really what we're about. Whether you agree with our politics or not, you can get people to really understand the community better. Safe to say the best thing about day trippers is they come, bring money into the community and they go home. Once the sun goes down, the whole color changes. It becomes a completely different vibe. It's almost like a different town.

[20:38] Bobby Bonanno: Not only is Cherry Grove the birthplace of drag, it also played a huge role in the birth of disco, specifically at the Monster and the Ice Palace. Before it became the institution it's known as today, the Monster in the West Village started out as a restaurant and bar in the Grove in 1969 and quickly evolved into the hottest gay night spot of the time. That was an incredible thing because I remember being in my little Speedo. Yes, I did wear it and I rocked it.

[21:08] Bobby Bonanno: I would walk up in the afternoon barefoot and there was sand on the dance floor in the Monster and you just were drawn in the next thing you know you were dancing and sweating with, you know, a hundred men. In 1970, the Ice Palace was established and referred to as the Boom Boom Room on Fire Island. Named after a story called The Ice Palace by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the club could easily fit a thousand people and was absolutely sweltering in the summer. Plans were set to create Fire Island's first disco at a time when gay liberation was exploding in Manhattan. The Ice Palace's main competition was the Sandpiper over in the Pine, except the Sandpiper was really just a restaurant with no live DJ. Saturday nights belong to Cherry Grove and the Ice Palace. It wasn't happening yet on Saturday nights in the Pines.

[22:08] Bobby Bonanno: So while Pines life was still very closeted and behind closed doors, the Pines boys of the early 1970s began the migration over to the Grove on Saturday nights to experience this novel idea of a live DJ. So people made the trek to the Ice Palace where, you know, DJs like Roy Thode and many others created that incredible sound where it was all night dancing and then when it was over at sunrise, you'd make your migration through the meat rack back to the Pines. It was a magical time. I mean, I remember literally putting my hand into the Ice Palace and you could feel the humidity and the sweat. The mirrors were all fogged, but it was just, again, it was just that height of disco and, you know, the smell of poppers and all of that fun stuff.

[23:04] Bobby Bonanno: The live DJ really started the co-mingling between the Grove and the Pines, and it was also drawing music producers to test out what music was going to be a hit in Manhattan. You know, music is what makes people come together, as Madonna says, and that is truly, you know, what happened. The tea dance exploded even bigger than it ever was with the advent of the DJ and a lot of the clubs in New York, it ended up becoming almost a level on the same level as Studio 54, 12 West, Paradise Garage. So all of those producers knew that that was the touchstone. If you could put a record out there and they responded, they were going to have a hit. So records like Donna Summer, Bad Girl, they were tested in the clubs out there. A lot of those producers went out there to party. So, you know, they worked and they played together.

[24:02] Daniel Nardicio: Cut to present day nightlife entrepreneur Daniel Nardiccio, co-owner of Club Cumming and the founder of the Long Running Underwear Party, is now the man in charge at the Ice Palace. Well, first of all, I didn't want it. The previous owner did such a miserable job of running it. But then I found out who they were showing it to. And when I heard that, I was like, oh no, it's going to end up just another low level drag bar. And when I heard that, I went to the boys and I said, it's like Oprah says, it's not the appointed time, it's the anointed time. Sounds so fucking pretentious, but it kind of was true. Like, if I didn't do it now, I'd have to wait 10, 20 years. So I figured do it. And you had the opportunity to create history.

[24:52] Daniel Nardicio: What is your vision to restore the Ice Palace to its former glory? I don't want it to be its former glory because I don't think you can ever go back. So people will say to me, oh, can you bring it back? I remember when I was in my 20s, we would be there on a Tuesday dancing. Honey, that's because you were better then. You think that everything was better then because you were better then. Your knees are now giving out. You're not going to be coming on a Tuesday because your knees no longer work. I don't think all the magic in the world is going to fill a Tuesday. You know what I mean? It's just a it's a different time. We're going to look to the future. We're also going to have a nod to the past. This summer, Daniel announced a slew of big name performers, including Dina Martina, Betty Who, Chita Rivera and even Patti LaPone.

[25:30] Margaret Cho: I love performing at the Ice Palace because it's just all of us there to have a sweaty, good time. And you get to see some of the glamour swept away. Nobody's trying to present this facade of anything. I mean, even the drag, it's got to be like a little bit sweated off because we're all in the middle of summer in the hottest time of the year crammed together in this venue. But it's also where the most magical things happen. I think we just really strip away all of the formalities and get to the real business at hand, which is entertainment. So it's always a place where I've really enjoyed shows and also enjoyed performing, particularly for the reason of, you know, you don't have to pretend anymore. We're just going to be sweaty creatures together.

[26:28] Daniel Nardicio: Is there going to be a facelift of any kind of the interior? Right now, the bathrooms have been redone. The old DJ booth is being restored for Saturday nights, a DJ booth that was like a tugboat in the middle of the room. Yeah, she's gone. Floors are being redone. We're putting in a whole different colour scheme. It's going to be in the blues and the silvers and the whites. When you come up the ramp, there'll be plaques telling you different historical things about it. We need to know, right? We're doing this thing called the wine and she's she's because the women don't have things for them. So we're doing like a Wednesday wine and she's with like live music. And the fireplace will be working again. So like in April, you could come and sit by the fire.

[27:16] Margaret Cho: While working on this project, I realized that this is one of the rare pieces of media about Fire Island from the perspective of a gay woman with no real favoritism toward the Grove or the Pines. I live to people watch at the bar at Sandcastle with an espresso martini. I want to see the assassins and head of lettuce absolutely kill on a Sunday night for locals. I want to watch showgirls and Rocky Horror at the Ice Palace during cult movie night. I also want to take long walks in the pines and go to tea and run into my boys who may or may not include Andy Cohen. I want it all. But still, it's extremely important to me that young gay women keep coming out, particularly to Cherry Grove, simply so we can keep finding each other.

[28:04] Margaret Cho: I think I found community in Cherry Grove from being a lesbian in New York. And I followed the other lesbians from New York to Cherry Grove. But since then, I've met new friends. And it's become like this whole community. I was out this weekend with a bunch of women that I met in Fire Island years ago. I talked to Catherine and Jeanette about how while Cherry Grove has this reputation of being the, quote, lesbian part of Fire Island, it's really just a percentage of the very diverse community here.

[28:34] Margaret Cho: First, I would say if Cherry Grove was 100% lesbian, I wouldn't have a job because I would never come home. So maybe this is a good thing that it is 60-40. There are moments, I do want to talk about Les Volley weekend, the lesbian volleyball tournament, which I call a high holiday. I never miss it ever. And it's literally the only time all year that the entire beach is lesbian. And all of Cherry's. It's my favorite time ever.

[29:08] Boudoir LeFleur: It's true. Les Volley is an annual women's volleyball tournament that has grown tremendously since 2011. It's now the most popular event for women and non-binary people on Fire Island. Les Volley is also now part of New York City's Gotham Volleyball League, the largest gay sports organization in New York City, founded in 1981. They professionally officiate the tournaments. It's all lesbians. All the gay boys hide in their homes. They take cover and lesbians just flood Fire Island. It's absolutely amazing. I love it. But I've been told recently that there are lesbians in the pines, and I had no idea. It's weird because you're right. They say that Cherry Grove is for the lesbians, and it is. But I would say it's more like the

[29:56] Jess Rothschild: I love talking to Pines Boys Brian Moylan and Ben Rimelower about their takes on the Grove. I always felt a little bit like a Cherry Grove gay, like in the Pines. And we talked for years about getting a house at Cherry Grove, but our problem was their supermarket sucks and they didn't have pools. And so we wanted a pool and a nice supermarket. And so we ended up staying in the Pines. But it was always fun to go on a Sunday afternoon pool party at the Ice Palace, drunk lesbians and straight people from Long Island. It was just a lot more real, a lot more homey. And the movie Fire Island is so right about how cliquish and how snobby it can be. And so there's this scene in Fire Island, the movie, where they keep walking into the rich people's house and someone goes, can I help you?

That is the most Pine thing I've ever seen in my life and happened to me more than once. And so in Cherry Grove, you never got that. The lesbians didn't care. The lesbians were happy to have you there. The drag queens were happy to have you there. The straight people were usually on their best behavior. Sometimes we'd be a little too wasted. But I never felt judged in Cherry Grove the way that I felt judged in the Pines. I mean, really, I treasure the Pines so much. But, you know, when I go to the Grove and I go to the Grove for dinner or a show or whatever, at least once a week, usually two or three times.

[31:26] Brian Moylan: Favorite restaurant in the Grove?

[31:27] Jess Rothschild: Well, we love to eat at Sandcastles because it's on the beach. I mean, food wise in the Grove, I actually like to go to Cherry's and just get like fried crap, you know. But what I love to do to go to the Grove is I walk on the beach. I don't take the water taxi and I don't go through the meat rack. To me, the meat rack is just like walking through mud. I fucking hate that. But walking along the beach, along the ocean, I think about Jerry Herman there riding La Caja Fall and I sing on the walk home if I'm by myself, you know, and I just love that. I love what I have my process of. I bring my extra bag over my shoulder. I put my flip flops in it. I bring 17 bottles of water, but I love it because I'm not one of those gym bunnies like you'll find in the Pines. I should really, I'm just a matter of time before I'm in Cherry Grove.

[32:10] Jess Rothschild: What I've been reminiscing about Jerry Herman riding La Caja Fall and Hello Dolly here is just the tip of the iceberg. Writers and artists like Truman Capote, Patricia Highsmith, W. H. Auden and Tennessee Williams all found inspiration in the Grove. Just look up W. H. Auden's poetic tribute titled Pleasure Island, in which the hardworking poet finds himself distracted by parties and houseguests while living here. We're going to focus on stories from all of the legends who lived here or visited in a later episode. Perhaps my favorite fun fact is how comedian Wanda Sykes met her wife on the ferry to Cherry Grove. Wanda famously has a home here. And one day a woman just caught her eye on the ferry. And that was that.

[32:53] Brian Moylan: I mean, you'd see like Wanda Sykes all the time. And once I was at the Ice Palace. It was like a random middle of the week night, like nobody was there. And Wanda Sykes was wasted and decided she was going to do like stand up comedy. And it was just like, give me the mic! On the microphone. But it was like the most genius thing I've ever seen.

[33:12] Jess Rothschild: Now, Brian, wouldn't allow us to omit a discussion about the Belvedere. The Belvedere Guesthouse for Men was built in 1957 and is designed in the style of a Venetian palace. It has terraces, towers, domes, statues and fountains.

[33:27] Brian Moylan: Have you talked to anyone about the Belvedere? One of my favorite places on Fire Island?

[33:31] Jess Rothschild: I haven't. I just love the Belvedere. And they call it Liberace's bathhouse. And that is like 100% what it's like. Everybody's naked and all the rooms are like themed. Oh, my God, it's crazy. When I worked at Next, we had a deal with them where we would give them free ads and they'd give us free rooms. And so I would go like once or twice a summer to the Belvedere. It's just the best place to have a party. So they had this huge deck along the bay. They let everybody out there and it was like orgy central on this deck, on the water. And it was just like, oh, what a magical night. A magical, magical place. Highly recommended. Almost as good as the Chicken Fingers and Cherries. No, I take that back.

It's better than the Chicken Fingers and Cherries. The young gay guys are in the pines because they can afford it. Because 25 of them can pool their money and rent a house, but they come to party in Cherry Grove. It's Daniel Nardiccio's underwear party. That's where all the boys are on a Friday night. When you go by the Ice Palace on a Friday night, you go up this big ramp to get there. The line from the front door goes all the way down the ramp, out onto the dock, girl. On a Saturday morning, they come over to get their breakfast in Cherry Grove. When they go on their run, they don't run the other direction. They run through Cherry Grove and go back to the pines. So the young hot people are in Cherry Grove. They just don't crash there.

[35:08] Diane Romano: Former president of the Grove, Diane Romano, remembers her very first visit with a friend suggesting they make a trip to Fire Island.

[35:13] Diane Romano: Why don't we go out to Fire Island? He said, I think you two would really love it. We'll spend the weekend or something. Right. So we did. And where did we wind up? In the pines. So the three of us were in the pines. And it was lovely. We went to the beach. We rented a place in the co-ops. And then like the second night, we walked over to Cherry Grove. And we went to the Monster. And we did the tea dance. And we had a delicious dinner. And then we went up to the Ice Palace. And when it was all over and we walked back to the pines, the three of us sat down and said, OK, we want to be in Cherry Grove.

[35:55] Jess Rothschild: What year is this?

[35:57] Diane Romano: Seventy five, I think. Nineteen seventy five.

[36:02] Parker Sargent: Homeowner Parker Sargent recalls her first day in the Grove, feeling immediately welcomed at Sandcastle, the only oceanfront restaurant in either community.

[36:11] Parker Sargent: The owner, Jackie, like our first day there, just came over and was like, hi, I don't know you guys, you know, like, hello. And just the staff was wonderful. We walked around town and everyone was queer, not just gay, not just that very pristine, idyllic version of gay that the pines can sometimes feel like. And so just immediately that environment was so welcoming. And that summer just continued to come on day trips. And the next year we purchased a tiny little studio apartment because we knew this is our new home. This is where we want to be.

[36:52] Parker Sargent: Truthfully, you said, tell me about the community. I love the community. I really do love the people. There are a couple I could do without, but there always are. And I can do without me, too. You know what I mean? The Cherry Grove Community Association, run by volunteers. Art Project of Cherry Grove, run by volunteers. The Cherry Grove Fire Department volunteers, people who give of their time to make our community a better place to live.

[37:21] Diane Romano: During Diane Romano's first year as president, she was faced with a major problem regarding the longstanding community house and theater. She was told it was structurally not sound and immediately got to work starting a series of fundraisers, campaigns and parties. They eventually raised $1.8 million and rebuilt the community house.

[37:43] Diane Romano: We didn't want to change the look of it. We didn't want to knock it down and rebuild it. We wanted it to still look like the Cherry Grove community house. But we knew that it had to be rebuilt from the inside out, basically. We raised in that little community of ours $1.8 million to rebuild that community house. And we did it. Not only did Diane serve 12 years as president, she also built Wisteria, the first women's only guest house on the island.

[38:15] Diane Romano: There's a time, I think, in the evolution of your time in Cherry Grove, where it's like, I should start to step up here. I should start to take an active role in this beautiful place that I love. Diane says she was inspired to create a guest house for women after not feeling entirely comfortable in hotels, even in mostly gay destinations like Provincetown and in Key West.

[38:38] Diane Romano: So it was like, rather than stay in a hotel with families and everything, let's stay in a gay guest house. And we did and we loved it. But we stayed in the guest houses for men, because the guest houses for women were mediocre at best. And the guest houses for men were beautiful. And it was like, one day we got to make it again. When I retire, we're going to have a guest house for women. That's beautiful.

[39:11] Jess Rothschild: Today, Wisteria is a brand new, gorgeous bed and breakfast with a pool, multiple terraces, seven rooms and a sleek kitchen and dining area to mingle in. How did you land on the name Wisteria? Is this a reference to Desperate Housewives?

[39:22] Diane Romano: No, not at all. The house was famous for its wisteria. The whole house was covered with wisteria. When we were rebuilding stuff, I said, you got to save this. So over the doorway and on the front gate and up the stairs a little bit is still the wisteria. So we're trying to think of a name. And I was like, that's feminine. Why don't we call it wisteria?

[39:47] Katherine Grainger: Like Diane Romano felt prior to running for president, Catherine Grainger is now feeling the pull to become more active in her Grove community.

[39:58] Katherine Grainger: I identify as black and queer, lesbian. And Fire Island, particularly Cherry Grove, is my favorite place in the world. And it is hard that there is a lack of seasonal diversity. There's definitely black and brown people that come out for the day. And that's fantastic. But sometimes, you're at their restaurant, you're the only person of color there. I do social justice work for a living. So Cherry Grove is my escape. It's where I literally escape for 72 hours each week. But I knew that I needed to get more involved. And so I started going to political meetings. I started going to community board meetings. I started forcing myself to do things that I normally wouldn't do and actively seeking out other black friends on the island, which I have now developed.

And we have a whole fantasy of buying a block in Cherry Grove and having our own space. And I think what we talked about, the other black people who go there, is we love this place. And so part of the work is say, if you want to claim this space, let's claim it. And so I continue to go out. I invite my friends. We are building a community there. And there'll be more of us as a result of it.

[41:13] Katherine Grainger: I used to go to Fire Island before I got sober. And I didn't make any connections with anybody. I would just be drinking alone on the beach. And then like, I met absolutely no one. A friend of mine knew that I was gay and introduced me to her stylist who then brought me to Cherry Grove. It was a guy and he was fabulous. And I went to the Ice Palace and went dancing with him. But I still didn't meet anyone. I didn't make any connections. And it's all very hazy until I got sober.

[41:48] Jeanette Cincotta: Jeanette told me about the thriving sober community on Fire Island, particularly in Cherry Grove. 12-step meetings are held every day on the beach and at the community house.

[41:54] Jeanette Cincotta: I was introduced to a bunch of sober people in the community. And they told me immediately, we want you to feel like this is home. And we want you to know that this is a safe space for you. So they brought me to their homes and told me if you ever need a shower, you can use our outdoor shower. If you ever like don't feel okay, you can come to our houses, which was hugely important to me. And then I realized that I wanted Cherry Grove to feel like home, regardless of who was there. So I started befriending as many people as I possibly could. I began to just introduce myself to everyone and get to know people and hear people's stories. And so now for the past several years, I can go at any point and it feels like home.

[42:42] Jeanette Cincotta: But I do want to also talk about the men in Cherry Grove because they are different than the men in the pines. They're raising families out there. They're out there with their lesbian sisters. It's a wonderful thing. Like I have very dear gay male friends that are in Cherry Grove. They don't spend any time in the pines. I'm over there more than they are. And we've built a queer community that just feels right. I try really hard through my films and through my work to tell queer people, this space is for you. As a trans woman, the rest of the world doesn't want to make room for me. They don't want to make space for me. It's the opposite. As we're seeing with all these laws, they're trying to make negative space for me.

Cherry Grove, I can have space. I just want people to understand that, that even if you can't afford to buy a house like I have, you know, I'm old. I got to this place where I could afford this. You don't have to wait for that. You can come for the day, just one day in Cherry Grove, like what it does to your soul. And you take that back with you. When you go back to the real world and you have to put up with all the bullshit that we as queer people face, especially as trans people, it makes you a little bit stronger. And the more you go, the stronger you get.

[44:02] Jess Rothschild: Thanks for listening to Finding Fire Island. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen today so you don't miss any episodes. Check out findingfireisland.com for all the tea and definitely follow me on Instagram at JessXNYC. Next, we're heading over to the Pines. We'll trace its closeted past, which evolved into a community with architecture designed for seduction. John White was a closeted person. He definitely was a very picky gay. And how I describe him with the Pines is the Pines was his castle and he ruled it like a king, but he also guarded it like a lion. See you next time on Finding Fire Island.