This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Unknown speaker: Well, I've heard a few things. I've heard that there were these lifeguard shacks I think every five miles and you had to take a token and you would pass the token. So one lifeguard would walk from their house to the next lifeguard shack and pass the token. And they would light fires along the island so that the ships wouldn't come and crash into the barrier. And that's why it's called Fire Island. And you'd pass these tokens up and down the shore. The Wikipedia actually says Fire Island Pines comes from the scrub pines growing in the area after a ship with Christmas trees and holly foundered off its coast in the late 19th century. Now that just sounds wild, doesn't it? A ship full of Christmas trees?

I mean, a lot of people claim to definitely know why it's called Fire Island. I have been one of those people. I have with my full chest said it's called Fire Island because when the settlers arrived, they could see the poison ivy from the beach. And that made the island appear red. So that's why it's called Fire Island. I don't know if that's true. I've heard so many stories about how people saw fires from the mainland. The idea of Cherry Grove and the cherry trees being red. Is it true that pirates used to set fire to the ships? It's one of the things that I've heard. We found many sunken ships in the process. Years seeing them float on the shores. Indians are involved. I mean, there's pirates, Indians.

It's like a pines party. Again, that's what makes it so fascinating. The fable, the mystique, the traditions, the mystery of all of it. It's a magical place that when you get on a boat, the world drifts away.

[2:01] Jess Rothschild: I'm your host Jess, and this is Finding Fire Island, Episode 6, Legends and Lore. In this episode, we'll uncover stories of the writers and artists who visited the island and get a glimpse into their time here. In my experience, Fire Island isn't a place where you have all of the history laid out for you to consume. It begins with little clues from the past, from references in film, TV, literature. Then you start digging as you become more ingrained in the community. You start going to dinner parties and you hear legendary stories of what happened here in the past. True stories, rumors, a lot of lore. Suddenly it becomes more than just the frivolous pool parties and the summer camp circuit of it. That's when it gets really interesting to be part of this ecosystem. Let's start with pines historian John Dempsey to break this all down.

[3:02] John Dempsey: If we're talking about celebrities in the pines, I would probably put it into three categories. The first are homeowners or renters who really set down roots there. And I would put the likes of Jerry Herman, Calvin Klein, David Geffen, Tommy Tune. The second category are the frequent visitors. People like Andy Cohen, who makes sure they come out for a week every year, or Diane Carroll, who rented for a while, or Montgomery Clift. Andy Warhol, Steve Rubell, the whole Studio 54 crowd. The third category, I would say, is the infrequent celebrity. Somebody who comes over by seaplane, drops in once, this is Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Cher. They come in, make a big splash, and leave.

[3:44] Daniel Nardicio: Daniel Nardiccio is the king of New York City nightlife, responsible for bringing folks like Sandra Bernhardt, Chita Rivera, and Bianca del Rio out to perform on the island in addition to his weekly underwear party. In 2012, Daniel produced a concert for Liza Minnelli and Alan Cumming. Yes, the real Liza Minnelli, after so many lookalikes have lip synced on the Ice Palace stage, recreating her entire repertoire and wardrobe. Well, first of all, it was, as Alan says, it was like a papal visit. The island shifted on its axis. A friend of mine, Will Weichel, wrote me that day and he goes, it's like you created a holiday weekend, like July 4th weekend. The island was buzzing. She was a dream. And I managed to get her because I asked.

That was it. I came up with the concept. I asked Alan, would you do something with Liza? He said, absolutely. Then I asked Liza, would you do something with Alan? And she was like, absolutely. And I was like, oh, this was easier than I thought. And it was all because I'd left the island and seen a person, you know, impersonating her at Cherries. And I thought, why can't we get the real Liza Minnelli? You know what I mean? I like female impersonators, fine. But like, I feel like gay men, we kind of really deserve the real thing. And of course, when you're doing Judy, you can't get Judy back, right? And nowadays, you can't really even get Liza back. So it's like, I don't mind it as much. But when she was at her, you know, I could get her. I was like, let's get her out here. So I got her and she didn't want to leave.

[5:15] Jess Rothschild: Where did you put her up?

[5:16] Daniel Nardicio: So I had rented her house on Green and it was a really beautiful house. But we looked at the house, me and her, like travel guy, he came out to visit, look at everything. In the spring, we hadn't even thought to ask if there was air conditioning. And of course, this was like the hottest weekend of the year. So she got there and she's like, I can't stay in this house. So I'd rented three little apartments across the way for Alan, his assistant and all these people. And Liza moved into that. And then people from over there moved into this big, beautiful house. So then Liza would be in her place putting her makeup on. So Liza would call me over and she'd be like, come over here, honey, I want to show you something.

She'd pull me over to her window and say, look, they're all looking for me. But she was behind them in the apartments. And she would just sit there and watch people that were looking for her and giggle. It was childlike and adorable and really fun because people didn't have an idea where she was. So it was a magical week.

[6:11] Jess Rothschild: She stayed there for five nights?

[6:13] Daniel Nardicio: She didn't want to leave. She kept extending her time, you know, and it was like whatever she wanted, she could still be there as far as I'm concerned. If she wanted to stay, I would have taken her. She helped my career. She did it for nothing. We gave the money to charity. She performed two shows in 100 Degree. Like she could have easily done one show and canceled the second one. She went in. She had a wig under her wig. She had a sweatband like you have for jogging in the 70s. She had one. They took it out, put a dry one on. She put a new wig on and came out and did the second show. Never complained once.

[6:47] Daniel Nardicio: That sort of her and Carol was the same way. It's sort of that's the difference between like Broadway versus TV so I can get Carol Channing out there and she'll do a show in a ramshackle barn being interviewed with someone she didn't know and do it for not a huge amount of money. So one of my favorite stories is actually about Carol Channing. So she was invited out to the pines by Jerry Herman and she was down at the Sandpiper, which was before the pavilion. The Sandpiper was the big dance club. And so Carol Channing's hanging out at the Sandpiper and some queen comes up to her and says, my God, you are the best Carol Channing drag queen I have ever seen. But then when I tried to get Carol Burnett, they're like, she needs to fly first class to TV money.

You know what I mean? And then first or no private from first class. No problem. She just like private from Los Angeles. And I'm like a private. It's a 300 seat bar. You know, I can't be flying you private. So anyway, that's all I learned. So you can get those old show ponies.

[8:04] Bob Levine: Let's go back to 1960, where Bob Levine was very comfortable with the Broadway crowd, which included composer Jerry Herman and actor dancer Tommy Tune. Jerry Herman, of course, I met him in the grove in the 60s and he bought a house in the pines around 65 after Hello Dolly. Tommy Tune lived in the pines and they used to bring all these celebrities out. And I was friendly with Tommy Tune and with Jerry Herman. And I would be invited to all those parties.

[8:37] Jess Rothschild: Is there any truth to the rumor that Hello Dolly was written at the Ice Palace?

[8:41] Bob Levine: Well, he well, OK, now there was no piano that he could. But he could have. Yes. In 1960, Jerry Herman and I lived at the Ice Palace. We had separate rooms. They were renting for the season from May through October. Three hundred dollars for the season. You had your own private room and you shared a bathroom. There was a beautiful dining room called the Tiffany Room where the Ice Palace is now. And it was like a very elegant country club that had very elegant people that stayed there. Jerry Herman and I became very friendly. So this was 1960. Then he wrote a musical called Parade, which was in 1961 off Broadway. He had Milk and Honey on Broadway. And then Hello Dolly in 63. He could have written in his room.

I wasn't there when he wrote it, but he didn't have a piano there. That's what I'm saying. I actually confirmed that Jerry Herman did, in fact, write Hello Dolly on Fire Island, just not at the Ice Palace. He wrote it on a home in the pines on Oaken Ocean, which did have a piano.

[10:05] Bob Levine: One of the other stories about Tommy Tune, which I don't know if it's true, but I think it's just fantastic, is that his home was basically a one bedroom with a stage. But he lived with his manservant. And apparently the manservant would come out every morning with a giant oriental rug and walk down to the beach and lay it out to set up this grand shady spot for Tommy Tune on the beach.

[10:52] Unknown speaker: Eleanor Roosevelt. There is a photo of her on the Cherry Grove dock in I don't know what year. The stories that have come from her time in Cherry Grove. Truman Capote came. Joan McCracken, dancer famous for Oklahoma. She owned a home out there. She was known for having a really quirky personality, and she was the one who inspired Truman Capote for the character Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, which was written in Fire Island. He did write Breakfast at Tiffany's in the Carrington Tract House, which is a house just between Cherry Grove and the pines. It sits in the area known as the Meat Rack. The National Park Services do not want you to call it that. They want you to call it the Carrington Tract. But supposedly he wrote that there.

[11:52] Unknown speaker: Not to be outdone, the Meat Rack itself has its own storied history and is recognized worldwide as the equivalent of the Rambles in Central Park or Piers by Christopher Street. Paul Rudnick, Daniel Nardiccio and Pansy all had plenty to say about the famed cruising spot.

[12:09] Paul Rudnick: The Meat Rack. The first thing someone told me was there's a place called the Meat Rack. Or the Judy Garland Memorial Forest. I always say there should be a sign that says, I'd turn back if I was you. I said, well, what is that? And they said, oh, it's a magical place where you could have fun anonymously. And I said, you mean fun, wink, wink? And they said, yes. And I asked where it was and they said, you just walk to the end of the boards and when the boards end, just keep walking. I said, and then what? And they said, and then you'll see. And the word of advice was, if you get lost, stand still and listen to the ocean, face the ocean and then turn right. And that's Cherry Grove.

[12:57] Daniel Nardicio: I will say, if we're going to talk about the Meat Rack, it was not one of my hangouts. I am judging no one. But it was in between the pines and Cherry Grove. You could actually walk. It was kind of a trek. But there was an area where people would go and hang out and have sex all night long in the sort of marshland and the trees and the bushes. And it was a completely known destination for that kind of activity. I think I was way too prissy because I would think about bugs and tree branches. So luckily, there were plenty of guys who ignored those things and just wanted to hook up. Also, one of those places that was world famous, where if you knew about it, you knew about it. I'm very different than a lot of people.

[13:41] Matt Rogers: Because I'm not a meat rack baby. So public sex has never really been my thing. I mean, I obviously deal in that world. As I like to say, cock is my business and business is good. But the meat rack, aka Judy Garland of Memorial Park has not really been my thing. I know too many people. So it's like, I'm going to walk out there and I'm going to run into my tenants. I love that it exists for people. I love that people are having public sex. I love that it's out there. It's not what I do. Is it still happening? I saw last year, I only went to the Grove. I was living in the Pine Slush. I only went to the Grove like maybe five times. And I was astonished at what I saw. I was like, you better work. Like I was like, broad daylight, this guy getting, um, what is it called? Spit roasted. I was like, all right. Um, I was shocked.

[14:43] Matt Rogers: We already covered the annual parties that mark each season, like the Morning Party and the Pines Party, but both can be traced back to a singular event called Beach. Taking place in 1979, Beach was the most elaborate disco party Fire Island had ever seen until that point. It also proved that it was possible to hold an event like this on the beach. It would change the Fire Island Pines forever, paving the way for the annual Morning Party and eventually the Pines Party. I mean, one of my favorite stories is about Beach 79, which started out as a quaint little fundraiser to purchase a fire truck for the Pines. And it inadvertently invented the Circuit Party. It became so anticipated that even the owner of Studio 54 struggled to get a ticket.

There are other rumors, which I've never been able to confirm, but I choose to believe them about Farrah Fawcett helicoptering in to enjoy the festivities. And I think that that party really represents the apex of both the happiness, the decadence, and the sort of joie de vivre that characterized life out in the Pines before all of the not so great stuff, which was only a couple of years in the offing.

[16:02] Matt Rogers: Christopher Rollins has amassed many stories about the homes he profiles in his book, Fire Island Modernist. One of my favorites is 603 Tuna Walk, a beautiful 1965 home by Horace Gifford. And Horace Gifford presented it to the client by telling him, you will now have 20 closets to come out of. There's another incredible house by Arthur Erickson at the very end of the beach before the meat rack. And what I love about that is it's got this incredible double height space. And when Erickson threw his housewarming party in 1977, he hired Roberta Flack for the entertainment, as one does, and filled the space with gold and silver balloons. And at the stroke of midnight, pressed a button, the ceiling retracted, and all the balloons flew out into a starlit sky.

They knew how to create a spectacle back then. There are so many legends of Fire Island, and many of them are actually true. There is a true and tragic tale of the death of the great poet Frank O'Hara, who had fallen asleep on the beach during the evening and was hit by a dune buggy out there and killed. And that I knew was true.

[17:06] Matt Rogers: There was also a peak period in the 70s and the 80s when the Pines became a major celebrity destination, when Calvin Klein had a house, David Gifford had a house, money was poured into these places, and parties were held, and helicopters and seaplanes were used as transportation. And so those parties became notorious for the bottles that attended, the porn stars that attended, the cocaine. Also every year, there was either a true story or a strong rumor about someone overdosing and dying, usually at some big dance party, and the helicopter or boat being rushed to bring the body back to the mainland. Sometimes those stories were quite horribly true, because there certainly was plenty of drugs to be had. But sometimes there was just this sense of it added to the drama, you know, and that sometimes it was just a guy who actually had done a little too much whatever and passed out, which is not the same thing as dying. But why not repeat it that way?

[18:13] Tim Cynova: When I was with Liza and she was out there one night, we went to Jumping Jacks back then or Sandcastle for dinner. And someone came up to her and said, Oh, my God, I was there the night your mom performed at Carnegie Hall. And we sat down and Liza said to me later, if every person that says they were at my mom's show at Carnegie Hall was actually there, she would have run for five years. The playwright Mark Crowley of Boys in the Band rented a house on Ocean Walk, and he would come out with actress Natalie Wood. And apparently one of the lines from Boys in the Band comes directly from a hustler that Mark Crowley was dancing with in Fire Island. So the quote in the play is from the hustler says, I try to show a little affection. It keeps me from feeling like such a whore. Crowley admitted he could never write anything that good. So put the line directly in the play. Great. I try to show a little affection. It keeps me from feeling like such a whore.

[19:09] Tim Cynova: You know, Madonna was always about to arrive. JLo was always about to get there. And some of those people actually do perform there. And there was a time when they would break dance singles out there because that was the crowd you were aiming it at. Also, because people were able to perform in Broadway shows, especially musicals, and make it out to the eye, the wonderful director, choreographer, Jerry Mitchell has a house out there. They could still get back in time for their show on Tuesday night. So it was a real refuge for those people, you know, that it was so that and it was part of the, you know, the sort of Manhattan excitement of, oh, my god, did you see who I just saw? You know, and because I think the celebrities liked it because they were especially not the same degree of surveillance.

Nowadays, everybody has a phone. So everyone's TMZ. And also, I think for gay performers who were not allowed to let any part of their personal life infiltrate their work life, this became so essential to their sanity.

[20:11] Tim Cynova: In 1982, pop artist Andy Warhol took the ferry in to spend the day with friends David Geffen and Calvin Klein. This section is from the Andy Warhol diaries dated July 31st, 1982. Got to the pines and called Calvin's from the boardwalk. Calvin and Steve Rubell woke up and talked about the fun time the night before. Went to a Hawaiian party down the street. In sunlight, you can really see what these people look like. Egon von Furstenberg was the only one I knew. Went for pizza, then went back to Calvin's. But we walked in on Calvin and Steve, who were with two porno stars, and we were so embarrassed. So we left and went back to the party down the street. We had barbecued steak and all the talking was gay, gay, gay. If I had a tape recorder, you wouldn't believe it. Then what happens is everybody goes to bed about 12 and sets their alarm for two because, quote, things don't get really hot till four. I heard everyone getting up at two, but I stayed in bed.

[21:37] Matt Rogers: The film A Normal Heart takes place in 1985, basing itself on Larry Kramer's autobiographical Broadway play. It focuses on the rise of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of the prominent HIV advocacy group Gay Men's Health Crisis. A Normal Heart was later turned into a film starring Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts. It was, of course, directed by Ryan Murphy. And of course, in the Broadway play, they can't go to the beach, but for the movie's purposes, they could. So they wanted to film in the Pines. Everybody was very excited. There was a lot of rumors going around. Karen Adair basically grew up in the Pines as her family owned a home here for over 40 years.

This is her firsthand account of Ryan Murphy filming A Normal Heart in her Pines home on Ocean Walk. And I knew it came down to my house and one other house that had not been modernized, not sheetrocked. And if you shot from a certain angle, if you didn't shoot my kitchen, which had been renovated, just shot towards the living room, it looked exactly like it did in 1986.

[22:51] Karen Adair: My house was located on the corner of Oak and Ocean. It was, of course, terrifically exciting. Besides all the money that they paid me, which was fabulous, they paid me about $16,000 for the week. At that time, it was a lot of money. And I got to meet Mark Ruffalo, who was so nice. And I was like, now I have to kill his French wife. This is too bad. And Julia Roberts came to the house, even though she wasn't in any of the scenes in Fire Island, because as you remember, she plays a doctor based on a true story, a doctor in a wheelchair. All her scenes were in New York City, but her husband was the director of cinematography for the film. She brought her kids, they rented a house. She turned up at my house with one of the kids, introduced me to the kids.

Jonathan Groff was in the house, and Ryan Murphy, of course, who was the director. They used some of my furniture, and they brought in other furniture, so it would look more of the time. So Jonathan Groff is trying to blow out his birthday candles, but he can't blow because he has no breath. So they filmed that three or four times. And I'm right behind, I'm hidden away in the kitchen, so you don't see me. And I watched them shoot that over and over again.

[24:25] Karen Adair: I asked Karen to tell me a celebrity sighting that would truly shock me. We had a small boutique, like where the pizza place is now, but around the corner. And I'm standing there, there's nobody else in the store. And I see this woman, she goes up to the counter to pay. She's got like wet, straggly hair. She's about 5'10". And I came up to the counter as well. And I looked over and of course, in those days, we wrote checks. And her check had one name, Cher. And I went, Oh, I didn't know you could have a check with just one name.

[25:01] John Dempsey: We first met John Dempsey in episode three, The Pines. John's immersion into pines archiving came as an absolute surprise to him. He explained how after one September weekend trip to the island, his friends got the Sunday scaries and went back to the city for work, while he and his husband decided to stay behind at the beach. And so we made ourselves cocktails. And on the way to the beach, we see an open house sign. And we absolutely fell in love with the house. So my husband and I were not intending to own a home in the pines. Never thinking we'd sort of be all in on a gay community, but we absolutely fell in love with it. It was the house that sold us. So we didn't know much about the house when we bought it.

But we quickly became friends with a good friend of the homeowner, who was able to give us the full history of the house. And so as it turns out, the previous owner of our house was actually Betty Davis's hairdresser. He used to joke that she didn't have many hairs on her head. So it was one of the most challenging hairdresser jobs you could get. But he would go make special visits to her hotel and do up her hair. So we knew the house had a history with Betty Davis, but it wasn't until five or six years after owning it, we were cleaning out a spot under the stairs and found a signed photograph of Betty Davis to the homeowner that really made it real.

[26:41] John Dempsey: There were also signed autographs from Angela Lansbury. So sort of the connection here is one of the homeowners was Betty Davis's hairdresser. His partner had a boyfriend on the side, Classic Pints, who was an agent at the William Morris Agency and was good friends with Carol Channing, Joan Rivers, Angela Lansbury. So they became part of that whole crew. And so they were all friends with our homeowners as well. John's experience of finding a treasure trove of belongings left behind by previous owners is more common than you would think. In 2022, The New York Times wrote a piece on two young homeowners who discovered 200 cassette tapes from various nightclubs around Fire Island at their house on Pine Walk.

These tapes feature DJ set recordings ranging from 1981 all the way to 1999 from legendary DJs of the time, including Robbie Leslie, Michael Jorba, and of course, Roy Thode. The tapes have now been digitized and remastered and are now known as the Pine Walk Collection.

[27:23] Jess Rothschild: DJs behind the decks treated their sets as a duty to their community, especially during the AIDS epidemic. Quote, "The dance floor was a very cathartic thing. For some people, it was an escape. You could go into denial for a few hours and completely compartmentalize the misery and that loss. You could put it on hold and get lost in music." Filled with countless hours of vintage house and disco, this archive of DJ sets from Fire Island's heyday is not only an amazing glimpse of that nightlife, but also just a solid collection of mixes that still hold up today. For many older people, the sets are taking them back to their youth. For younger listeners, they offer a time capsule from a bygone age.

[28:19] Jess Rothschild: We do have some details of Madonna's visit to the Pines, thanks to her brother Christopher Ciccone selling himself out with his juicy tell-all, "Life With My Sister Madonna." Any Madonna fan, like me, will recognize her brother Christopher, who began as her lucky star backup dancer and would later go on to art direct both the Blonde Ambition Tour and The Girlie Show. In Christopher's autobiography, he describes Fire Island as, quote, "The only place in the world where I feel completely at ease being a gay man." He writes about renting his usual cottage on Shorewalk on the Bay with his longtime boyfriend in the summer of 1989. Christopher writes, "I invited Warren Beatty and Madonna to come out here for lunch, and to my surprise, they agree.

I tell them that they can either drive to Sayville and take the ferry from there, or take a seaplane from 23rd Street in Manhattan. They opt to take the seaplane." I go to meet them at the dock. They disembark from the plane looking green with nausea. Both of them say, "We are never doing this again. Why didn't you tell us?" Apparently, space in the plane was really tight, and it flew so low that it bounced all the way from Manhattan to the Pines. Once they've recovered from the trip, we have lunch and then go swimming. By now it's mid-afternoon. The island is swarming with people. The word that Warren and Madonna are in town sweeps through the island like wildfire. They are probably the biggest stars ever to visit in more than 50 years.

After that, my status on Fire Island soars. At the end of the day, I take Warren and Madonna to the ferry, which takes them to Sayville where a car will take them back to the city in comfort. I walk back to the house smiling, knowing that everyone knows that we just had Madonna and Warren Beatty to lunch.

[30:13] Jess Rothschild: One bit of trivia I'm obsessed with is how in the early 1960s, all of the Fire Island communities came together to protest Robert Moses's plan to build an access road through Fire Island. So you're probably familiar with Robert Moses's quest to build highways throughout all of Long Island. He believed the future was families coming from the city and spending time out on the beaches. Robert Moses was an urban planner and public official who worked in New York City from the early 1920s to 1960, 40 years. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influential people in the history of New York City and New York State. Moses's projects transformed the New York area and revolutionized the way cities in the United States were designed and built.

He nearly had complete control over the highways, bridges, and tunnels in New York City. So that plan included Fire Island. And people may know today that the only way to bring a car onto Fire Island is via the Robert Moses Causeway. So that's all the way on the west side of Fire Island. Take your car over, spend time on the beach and go home. But the original plan for Fire Island is you would take Robert Moses Causeway over and there would be a highway that would go from end to end on the island. The four-lane highway was to be built on sand dredged from the Great South Bay and would supposedly anchor Fire Island from further erosion. Residents would have access to the beach only through a series of tunnels under the road.

It would have caused the demolition of several hundred homes to make that possible. And Moses argued that this would bring great economic boon to the community. Faced with the obliteration of their communities, Fire Islanders for the first time banded together to fight the plan. I mean, it's actually unique that they won in Fire Island because this was happening all over Long Island where Moses was insisting these highways go through and people would have to move their homes or reduce the size of their properties. Cherry Grove and the Pines joined forces with the straight sections like Ocean Beach and Ocean Bay Park and throughout the summer of 1962 held protests, fundraisers, and organized letter writing campaigns to influence local politicians. The Fire Islanders won. And guess what? The economic boom happened anyway.

[33:00] Jess Rothschild: Following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol, Andy Cohen would later publish his diaries, the "Andy Cohen Diaries," in which he includes a very detailed week on Fire Island in August 2014. While Warhol was palling around here with Calvin Klein and David Geffen, Andy Cohen's stay is filled with his friends Kelly Ripa, Mark Consuelos, and of course, Sarah Jessica Parker. From the "Andy Cohen Diaries," SJP's arrival on the ferry was the closest thing I've seen to Dolly Levi returning to the Harmonia Garden. She's carrying her luggage, kisses blown, photos taken. For real, I thought a song and dance number was gonna break out and the kids passing out flyers by the ferry were gonna thrust her into the air.

SJP has a thing for grocery stores. She feels like when you travel, the local stores tell you a lot about where you are. So after dinner, we took a walk and went into the Pines' pantry so she could investigate. She walked through that pantry with the wonder of a child visiting Disney World for the first time. Look at the beautiful butcher section, here's the hardware, a crock pot. The people working at the store reacted to her with the same wonder, so it was like the animals in the zoo watching the visitors. Later that night, we went to listen to DJ Lina spin at the sip and twirl, sat on the railing listening to music as twinks and gays of all shapes and sizes testified at her feet. We were right next to the speakers, but that didn't stop this kid from coming over and telling SJP that he would be honored to sing her a song.

Ever gracious, she acted as though it was purely natural when he sang the entirety of John Legend's "All of Me" in full American Idol audition mode while Abba blasted from the speakers five feet away.

[35:25] Jess Rothschild: So let me tell you a little bit about the Robert Mapplethorpe story. So when Mapplethorpe first came out to the Pines, he was pretty much a nobody. Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe first came to the Pines, like many others do, as the guest of a new boyfriend with a summer share. He had just started dating Sam Wagstaff, who was an art photography collector and curator. So anyway, when Mapplethorpe was first coming out to the Pines, he was pretty much a nobody. But Sam really took him under his wing, got him his first large format camera, and rented a house in the Pines for the summer and could come out and bring his entourage. And all of his life, Mapplethorpe wanted to be somebody famous. He really wanted to be around the important people.

So it was in Fire Island Pines that Mapplethorpe finally was able to get in touch with the famous people that he admired all of his life. The Studio 54 crowd, Steve Rubell, Andy Warhol, David Geffen. And this is really what began to propel his career. His very first trip out, he brought his still-quasi-girlfriend at the time, Patti Smith.

[37:00] Jess Rothschild: Paul Rudnick shared with me about a rare coffee table book that's filled with photos from the 1930s and 40s. It's a wonderful coffee table book of photos from there was a group of artists, Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and their various partners, and sometimes their wives, who really like in the 20s and the 30s hung out on Fire Island when there were very few even structures out there. But they took photographs that are in this book of them hanging out naked and painting each other and dancing. And they're gorgeous. They're all young and stunning. And you know, this was their artist colony. And you look at it and you just think it's like Gay Fitzgerald or something. It's so romantic and elegant and daring for the time.

And you're so glad that there were people who were like Horace, people who were big celebrity photographers working in movies and theaters who took pictures of their friends that were only circulated among their friends and, thank God, were preserved.

[38:05] Jess Rothschild: One of my favorite things, which is not about anyone famous, was about a guy who lives on the neighbor. He's got to be a hundred years old now if he's alive still. I mean, he was last summer, but he's really old, was that they used to bust the guys that were in the meat rack and put their names in the newspaper. So he was in the meat rack one night doing whatever, and the police came and raided the meat rack. And so he ran into the bay, broke off a reed, and stayed underwater for an hour. You know how reeds are hollow? He breathed through a reed underwater in the bay for an hour and a half and waited till the raid was over because he was a lawyer and was so afraid that the police were going to put his name in the paper, he'd lose his job.

So he just breathed through this tiny reed in the water for an hour and a half and then slowly made his way. Now I'm a person who, I'm terrified of sharks, right? I'm a Jaws baby. Like I came out at that time when Jaws and Piranha were really like meant to fuck you in the head. Well, it did. I know there are probably no sharks in the bay. I know it, right? I know it. And pretty much you could tell me, "Daniel, it's a thousand percent there's never going to be a shark in the bay." And I would still be pissing myself, shaking like a leaf, you know? But he managed to walk all the way through the meat rack along the bay until he got to the grove and then he went home. That's a hero. That's an amazing story.

That's one of my favorite stories I think ever. Is that true? It's a hundred percent true, a hundred percent true. He tells the story all the time and it's like, it's a hundred percent true. And the story never really changed.

[39:47] 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'll explore how the AIDS crisis was felt on Fire Island. We'll see how as HIV ravaged the community, it also coincided with women earning more money and being able to purchase homes in Cherry Grove. They said when the men started to die, the women started to buy. Well, I don't know if you'll be able to use this, but I'll say it anyway. The real phrase is, "fags die, dykes buy." See you next time on Finding Fire Island.