Sights in Fire Island

Gay attractions on Fire Island are not so much individual structures as places with a long queer history. Since the 1940s, the island has been considered a haven for the LGBTQ community, and Cherry Grove was one of the first areas in the U.S. where gay and lesbian life could take place openly. The most famous event is the Invasion of the Pines on July 4: In 1976, a group of drag performers from Cherry Grove took a boat to the Pines in response to discrimination in the Blue Whale, and since then this has been repeated every year as a boisterous drag parade at the harbor.

If you explore the island on foot, you can walk along the typical wooden walkways without cars and cross the Meat Rack with the historic Carrington House from 1912 on the way between the villages.A little further west at Sailors Haven is the Sunken Forest, an old holly forest in the Fire Island National Seashore, whose vegetation is partly several hundred years old and which is accessible via boardwalks. In addition, there are the long, often textile-free sections on the beach that characterize island life. If you want to understand the queer side of Fire Island, it is best to combine a walk through both places with a visit during the high season.