Flashback Friday: Vintage Fire Island
Fire Island has been a getaway for New York gays for generations: Its shores have welcomed a creative class that includes Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Montgomery Clift, David Geffen, Calvin Klein and Wanda Sykes. And as gays began to make their mark on history, Fire Island was there, too—the backdrop to the birth of the early gay rights movement and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic.
The Pines Invasion is an annual celebration of the day in 1976, when a drag queen from the more bohemian Cherry Grove was turned away from a restaurant in the Pines, and returned in force with her sisters. The two communities are (mostly) on good terms and celebrate the event with a flotilla and poolside drag-queen beauty pageant.
Watch Fire Island, premiering April 27 at 8pm on Logo.
Below: A clip from the 1987 Fire Island Pines Invasion, and view candid photos from the Pines from 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s
