David Furst: This is all of it. I'm David Furst in for Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. On today's show, pastry chef and baker Justin Burke is here to talk about his new cookbook, Potluck Desserts: Joyful Recipes to Share with Pride. Kazz Alexander is one of the co-chairs of NYC Pride. He joins us to talk about all of the events happening in and around the city this weekend. Plus, we round up some of the best beaches in our area. We want to know about your favorites, so keep that in mind. That's the plan, so let's get this started with a little Fire Island history. [MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

David Furst: For more than three quarters of a century, the Fire Island beach town Cherry Grove has been known as an LGBTQ haven where people can get away from it all and be themselves. It's one of a handful of LGBTQ vacation spots and resorts that first became popular in the pre-Stonewall era. Now, it's the focus of a lot of attention as part of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection summer programming. A new podcast called Queer Grove documents the area through the voices of those who kept its legacy alive. Then there's Making Miss Cherry's documentary that follows a drag performer as he competes in the 2022 Miss. Cherry's All Stars pageant, that has its premiere next month. There's also a limited edition photo book of the Safe Haven exhibition focused on the Cherry Grove community. Joining us to discuss all of this is the host of the Queer Grove podcast, Making Miss Cherry's filmmaker and Cherry Grove Archives Collections creative director, Parker Sargent. Welcome to all of it.

Parker Sargent: Thank you for having me on to talk about my favorite place on earth.

David Furst: Favorite place on earth. What better way to set it up than that? There's a lot going on here and you are wearing a lot of hats. All episodes of the Queer Grove podcasts are available now wherever you listen to podcasts. That premiere of Making Miss Cherry's that's taking place at the Cherry Grove Community House and Theatre on Saturday, July 26. First of all, how did you get involved in documenting all of this history?

Parker Sargent: Well, I kind of happenstanced onto Cherry Grove and to becoming involved in the history of the space. Basically, it started with my wife and I in our transition, wanting a place to go where we could be on the beach as trans femmes, and we didn't feel comfortable doing that anywhere, Long Island, beach, whatever, where people would go. We just didn't feel comfortable. I happened to be watching PBS. There happened to be the documentary Ocean Meets Sky, it just so happened to be right at the part about Cherry Grove. It just so happened to be talking about the invasion, which just so happened to be a week from the day I was watching it. To me and my wife, it screamed to us, we've got to go on this day and experience this event, but also be able to go on the beach and feel comfortable. We went to the Invasion of the Pines, a wonderful event that happens every--

David Furst: Talk about what that is. Yes.

Parker Sargent: The Invasion of the Pines started in 1976. It happens every year on July 4th. It began as an act of protest because generally, people think of Fire Island as gay. They think of the whole of Fire Island as gay. There's 17 communities and only two of them are queer. That's Cherry Grove, which originated first, and then Fire Island Pines, which is right next door to us. We're sister neighboring communities, but very different. That was true in the '70s. That is true in some ways today.

A very popular drag performer in Cherry Grove named Terry Warren tried to go over to a restaurant in the Pines to have dinner. She was what we would probably today consider a trans woman, but we can't put labels on people that didn't have those labels. Looking back and seeing how she presented herself, I feel confident that she would probably be trans today. She went over dressed in what was called drag, but it was really just her being herself. She was refused service at the restaurant because it was said to be, "We are a family establishment."

She came back to the Grove, started telling her friends a very well-known community member named Tom Hansen, better known as Panzi, he decided, let's go over there and protest. Because it became outrageous to people in Cherry Grove that another gay community would be discriminating against someone who's queer.

That is really where the invasion started, as an act of protest. Since then, it's just a massive party with hundreds of people that do every form of drag, be it frumpy or fishy. Everything is just-- it's an explosion of celebration on July 4th weekend, and drag and Cherry Grove and the Pines kind of coming together as a queer force.

David Furst: We're going to get into more of the history, but listeners, are you a member of the LGBTQ community? When did you first learn about Cherry Grove and its legacy as a safe haven? Have you been to Cherry Grove on Fire Island? Tell us a fond memory you may have of visiting the island. What makes Cherry Grove so special? We want to hear your stories as well. You can call or text us the number for-- Excuse me, I know the number. 212-433-9692. Once again, that's 212-433-WNYC, or you can also reach out on social media @allofitwnyc. Yes, more history on Cherry Grove. First of all, exactly where is it located on Fire Island?

Parker Sargent: We are in the most perfect spot on Fire Island.

David Furst: Naturally.

Parker Sargent: Of course, right? The island itself is shaped like a boomerang. We are right at the curve of that boomerang. We get the best sand on our beach. Beautiful pink quartz. Our dunes, because we are a place of volunteerism, everyone is very involved in Cherry Grove to keep it running, to keep all of these different activities like the archives, but also our dunes. We protect our own community by building up our own dunes. We have beautiful beaches that are very popular for visitors, but also for homeowners like myself. It can be very private and very communal.

David Furst: Well, while we're talking about the history on the island, let's talk about who lived there before European settlers arrived in the region.

Parker Sargent: Right. As we go into. Into the podcast, there's this concept of where does the story start, even as queer people? We can start where we start to know that queer numbers are happening in Cherry Grove, but really to understand the space and to understand ourselves, we need to go all the way back. Who was in this space?

We have the whole episode of the podcast where we just go back to our indigenous roots, talking about the different tribes that lived on Long Island, that of course, became Fire Island. Fire Island's just a sandbar off of Long Island, but that didn't happen until, I think, 1694 with some big storms. Then that became a separate beach. We go into that in the show. Who were the first indigenous people? Then we start to go into what we call the founding families, which were the first families that began to develop Cherry Grove specifically as a more living community.

David Furst: Let's listen to a clip from the podcast. This is from an episode of Queer Grove. This is Jeremy Dennis, a photographer and an enrolled tribal member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, explaining that during the summers, native people would canoe from place to place and swim and fish while living as nomads.

Jeremy Dennis: In the European eyes, I think it was a good thing that we were nomadic, because wherever we weren't, in any given moment, it was seen as empty and free for the taking. For us, it was giving the environment opportunity to replenish and regrow. We would never harvest anything until depletion or until extinction. That was something that as soon as Europeans arrived, it became a problem. Before Europeans arrived, we would just have hundreds and thousands of square acres of land to wander and harvest whatever we needed, and it would always be there, and we'd be familiar with those lands.

David Furst: Parker, this is a history you really delve into in the podcast.

Parker Sargent: I think it would be irresponsible for us not to. While I am the host of the podcast, it is crafted by the entire Cherry Grove Archives Collection board, as is everything we do. We all, as a committee, decide what stories do we want to tell, how do we tell them? It was certainly important to us, whenever we have an exhibition, we always make land acknowledgments. When we decided to do this podcast, it was really important to include that part of our history and deal with our queerness is not solely about being queer. It is about these communities that become ours. Where do we get them from, and so then how do we respect the space when we continue to use it?

David Furst: We're speaking with Parker Sargent, host of the Queer Grove Podcast, and we'd love to hear from you. The number to call once again is-- Oh, my goodness, I lost the number. This is terrible. The number should be written on my hand at all times. The number is 212-433-9692. Let's hear from Allison calling in now from North Stamford. Welcome to All Of It.

Allison: Oh, thank you so much.

David Furst: Did you want to talk about a memory or going to Cherry Grove, perhaps the first time you went?

Allison: The first time I went, I was in high school. I grew up on Long Island, and I came out in high school, actually my senior year. This was back in 1980, '81. We used to have to go to private clubs, and Cherry Grove was spoken about. It was a safe haven for all of us. A place where we could go to be ourselves and enjoy each other's company and have fun and be typical 20-year-olds or teenagers, and rented homes there. It was an amazing experience for me and very freeing, and it helped me to become myself.

David Furst: Did it feel like what we've been saying, a safe haven for you?

Allison: Absolutely. Even in the bars, we were raided, in clubs on Long Island. I was arrested, followed by a police officer just coming out of a club. Thank God I hadn't had any drinks or anything. We experienced those types of things, but at Cherry Grove, we did not, not until in the 2000s sometime. There was some of that when there was more of a police presence, when more straight people started coming, thinking it was anything goes, and started taking advantage, unfortunately.

David Furst: Well, Allison, thank you so much for joining the conversation today. Parker, what about some of those thoughts?

Parker Sargent: Cherry Grove is a safe haven. It's been a safe haven since the 1940s for queer people. A lot of times when I'm interviewing people, I like to ask them, "Do you think that we still need Cherry Grove as a queer safe haven?" Because a lot of people perceive that as queer people, we can be queer anywhere. I think we're really seeing the reality of that in the last year. It is still needed for queer people, but also for any marginalized group.

People of color, women, trans people, we still need a space where we are protected and we are surrounded by our community. The same thing that people were experiencing in the '40s, the same things that she was just talking about experiencing when she came out from Long Island as a teenager, it's still there. People are still having that same freedom and liberation feeling when they get to the space.

David Furst: We're getting a lot of calls and texts right now. Here's a question that comes up on this one text. "Can the guest talk about the terminology queer? Many, many Cherry Grovers are deeply uncomfortable and skeptical of that term. They say, we prefer the term lesbian." Can you address that term?

Parker Sargent: Right. I think that this is an ongoing conversation that we certainly do have in Cherry Grove quite often, just one-on-one conversations. I think a larger conversation when we went into even naming the podcast, it would be, what would we call it?

David Furst: Right. Because that's right in the name.

Parker Sargent: Exactly. There are people, when they see it, they go, "Whoa." Because queer really was-- it was hate speech. Anytime you heard that word, it hurt someone. I think that that has shifted so dramatically with the way that people are identifying now. A lot of people in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum are not just L, they're not just G. I am a T. I spent a lot of time as a G. I still get credit for all the work I did. We are all part of the spectrum together. How do we identify ourselves without doing that whole alphabet soup every time we talk about our community?

For most young people, it is to use the word queer because it encompasses all of us. Queer is everyone. Maybe it's a reclaiming of the word. Oftentimes, marginalized people will do that. They'll reclaim a term. That is very much the spirit of why we use the word queer, because it is meant to encompass everyone. Because it's not just about the gay men, it's not just about the lesbians. It's about all the people who are in those spaces in between.

David Furst: You sound very open to the discussion as it continues to evolve and other viewpoints emerge.

Parker Sargent: For sure, this is how we, especially in Cherry Grove, operate our community. It's all, like I said, very volunteerism. We're all very involved, and so we talk with each other on the boards, we talk with each other at meetings, and unfortunately, Facebook, too.

[laughter]

David Furst: Well, we're going to continue this discussion in just a moment here on All Of It. We're speaking with Parker Sargent, Cherry Grove Archives Collection creative director, host of the Queer Grove podcast, also maker of the Making Miss Cherry's documentary. We continue this conversation next here on WNYC. If you want to join the discussion, 212-433-9692.

[music]

David Furst: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst in for Alison Stewart. We're talking about the history of Cherry Grove on Fire Island and speaking with Parker Sargent, the creative director of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. We're also taking your calls. The number 212-433-9692. Parker, I have to have you respond to this text here.

This is what it says, "I've been going to Queer Fire island for over a decade, multiple times this summer. It is a singular place, perhaps globally, where all things are homonormative as opposed to heteronormative. Academic words aside, it's fun, it's weird, it's beautiful. One thing I'd like to add to your discussion, the two gay destinations, Cherry Grove and the Pines, are sometimes at odds with one another, but are mostly symbiotic sisters. Is there any--" Oh, this is how they finish. "If there are any hoity-toity Pines boys listening, Cherry Grove is awesome, and we should show it more respect." Signed, Kyle from New York.

Parker Sargent: Hi, Kyle. Yes, Kyle's right. We're queer. That is why, again, we use the word queer. Often people look at the Pines as a certain kind of-- it is gay, actually. That's the best way to describe it. It is gay male-oriented. Cherry Grove is not. It is largely populated by lesbians, drag queens, trans people, wonderful straight community members that have been there for years. We really are more of a mix.

I will say all those hoity-toity Pines boys know that because they all come over on Friday night to go to the underwear party and have fun and come to Floyd's on Saturday morning to get breakfast. People come to Cherry Grove if they're staying in the Pines. We are where you want to be if you want to have a good time.

David Furst: It all gets resolved over breakfast. That's how it works. Well, thank you for that. Let's take another call. Amy in Manhattan. Welcome to all of it.

Amy: Hi, thanks for having me. I was just calling with a memory. I've been going to Cherry Grove with a dear group of good friends for over a decade now. Every summer we stay in the same house that we sublet from a group of gay men that are wonderful, have become friends. I've been through going out there through all the stages of life, really partying it up and having more calm times lately.

I love what you said, Parker, about we're all on the spectrum together. It really is like all different versions of queer people being themselves and finding a place of belonging and joy and release from just more constrained spaces, even from even being in the city. My favorite memory is three years ago on Pride. Typically I want to be in New York City in Manhattan for the Pride parade for the Queer Liberation March. I have a seven-year-old; she was four, and we decided to stay in Cherry Grove over actual Pride weekend.

It's actually quite quiet because most of the queers are in the city doing all the parties and they have a really sweet little parade in Cherry Grove that was my favorite Pride by far, with kids and elders and the local fire department and just it is so charming and wonderful and I highly recommend it. It's not a lot of family-friendly opportunities there, meaning for kids. This was just perfect.

David Furst: Amy, thank you for that. Have you ever seen that parade, Parker?

Parker Sargent: I am going to be part of it this weekend for the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. We do it every year because we don't have cars, we have little go-karts, the businesses do, and they allow us to commandeer them, and we dress them up and we parade all through town. Everything in Cherry Grove is a fundraiser. As I said, it's all volunteerism to keep everything going. Even that is a way for us to get people involved and to get people excited about the community. The more they care about the community, the more they take care of it, the more they come back and the more chances we have at keeping this a queer, safe space.

David Furst: We're going to take another call in just a moment. For those who have never been to the island, can you describe the look, the architecture for us?

Parker Sargent: Again, each community is very different. I don't spend a lot of time in the other communities. I've visited them to do lectures about Cherry Grove history, and they can look similar, but very different to us. Other communities are more regimented, more traditional cedar shake sort of looking beach houses. Cherry Grove, again, wonderfully unique space. We have small houses, but they're all different, and everyone names their houses, and that's been a tradition for years. They make house signs and have big parties. Come to West Side Story. It's just part of our culture to have that unique flair. We're kind of like this jewel box of beach houses.

David Furst: We talked about some of the history earlier, but how did this hamlet on Fire Island develop a reputation as a getaway spot for the LGBTQ community?

Parker Sargent: Long story short, I think it's just that there were theater people in the '40s who were finding a space to come out in Ocean Beach and other communities. Then Cherry Grove itself started to develop because of the hotel. I think what the queer visiting people found in Cherry Grove was that there wasn't as much ruling and maintenance of that straightness on the other side of the island. They just started to come to Cherry Grove more and more, and it just grew. It became a haven for people each season, theater people, because it's so close to the city.

Of course, in the '70s, it just exploded. It was such a place of creativity and sexuality, and so naturally, it just-- That's really, I feel like where it became the folklore, that folklore that is part of being queer, there's Fire Island. There's always Fire Island in your mindset, somewhere it comes up. I think that's because of the '70s.

David Furst: We're talking about Fire Island and memories of Cherry Grove right now with Parker Sargent, the creative director of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. Let's take another call. 212-433-9692. Max in Chelsea. Welcome to all of it.

Max: Hi, David. Hi, Parker. Thanks for taking my call, and Happy Pride, everybody. I am not the kind of gay who goes to the Pines. I'm the kind of gay who goes to Cherry Grove. I'm not hoity-toity either are my friends. I started going back in 2017, and I have to tell you, the first thing that struck me was a sense of community. When you walk the streets of Hell's Kitchen or different gayborhoods, there's a certain pretension that you feel.

When you walk those little boardwalks, those charming boardwalks of Cherry Grove, everyone, regardless of time of day, you look each other in the eye, you say, hello, good afternoon, and there's this sense of community and love that you don't really feel. You kind of wish you could bring it back here to the city.

With regards to safety, we definitely still need a Fire Island for queer people because there's a certain sense of everyday awareness when you're holding your hand with your partner. If you're walking anywhere in the city, you're always looking over your shoulder. You have spatial awareness. When I'm on Fire Island, particularly Cherry Grove, I could just get lost and rub suntan lotion on his back or do a little kiss here and not wonder, "Did someone look? Is someone going to say something? Is someone going to do something?" It's just liberating. You could finally just let your guard down. Cherry Grove is definitely a special place. We also named our dog Cherry.

David Furst: Letting your guard down, that's an incredible feeling.

Parker Sargent: As a trans woman, I do not feel safe in America. I live on Long Island. I live in a pretty nice area, but there is still a sense of discomfort that didn't exist maybe two or three years ago. People really started to be more open and more embracing. You can feel that closing, those doors closing, those doors of empathy and generosity. All winter, I had a very somber winter, of course, as most people did, I think, in America, and most people listening to this program.

When I finally got to go back and open our house in April and be around queer community, even though there was few of us out there, it felt so wonderful. It just felt so great. Every weekend when I get to go back, it's such a cherished privilege that I get to have of safety.

David Furst: I want to take another call. This is from Claude in Manhattan, who has a comment that I really want to bring into this discussion. Claude, welcome to all of it.

Claude: Yes, nice to be here with you. First of all, I want to endorse the idea of queer as nomenclature, which I've always tended towards. I'm a 35-year resident in the Pines. I just want to mention that I really love Cherry Grove and I go there often. I think that some of the comments that came on today are not up to date with what the Pines has become. It goes both ways. People in Cherry Grove complain about the Pines, and people in the Pines complain about Cherry Grove, that they're this way, they're that way. We're one community. We should stop that.

Parker Sargent: Earlier, what I mentioned, what's so great about the Invasion of the Pines is that it really is a representation of that unity. Because for whatever reasons, and it's changed over the years since the Pines was created, whatever reasons people will have through the decades of, "Oh, we're different for this reason or that reason," we are queer. Again, we're all in that spectrum.

I think calling hoity-toity, maybe that's a little disrespectful. I think that we are all queer and I revoke my hoity-toity statement. To say they are different communities and they exist in different ways, but they coexist with each other. I think for Fire Island, if you want to have the Fire Island experience when you're young, it kind of starts in the Pines, and then you visit the Grove. We have less houses to rent, so there's less opportunity for people to come in on such a large scale as the Pines. I think most people start in the Pines, and then they fall in love with the Grove, but there's always going to be a symbiotic relationship between the two communities.

David Furst: Let's hear it for both. As we're speaking with Parker Sargent right now, let's take-- Oh, let's hear from Lynn in Parsippany, New Jersey. Welcome. Do you have a question or a memory?

Lynn: I have a memory. I have a great memory of being there. I was there in the '80s with my boyfriend. Can you hear me?

David Furst: Oh, yes.

Parker Sargent: Yes.

David Furst: Hello. Yes.

Lynn: Okay. We're straight. We're both straight. We had a boat in the Pines, and we would go to Cherry Grove on Saturday nights and have a great time at the bars and the dance clubs. I didn't feel out about it, that I didn't belong. I loved the fact that these couples could walk and show affection and not be afraid. It was just a wonderful experience. Invasion of the Pines was just amazing. It was kind of like a Mardi Gras atmosphere. If I had to say anything about the differences between the two towns, I would say Cherry Grove was like the Village, and maybe the Pines was the Upper West Side. It was just great experience. I liked the fact that-- Excuse me, my voice is a little-

David Furst: Sure.

Lynn: -fumbly.

David Furst: I think you're bringing up some beautiful thoughts there and touching on some of what we've heard today. Safe Haven, a place where you can let your guard down, and using the language we just heard, not be afraid.

Parker Sargent: When I interviewed Joel Kim Booster, the writer and star of the film Fire Island, he told me about how his husband and he joke that when they want to have a kid, they'll leave the Pines and come to Cherry Grove. It's because we kind of-- I said we're kind of like the gay suburbs of Fire Island, because we have that mixture, and everybody there feels safe. That's been happening since the 1940s and the 1950s. That's why we created this beautiful book, Safe Haven, that documents that early time in Cherry Grove. You can get the book by visiting our website, www.cgarchives.org.

David Furst: Well, you have a lot going on, and as we're wrapping up right now, could you just touch on a couple of these projects? There's a film, there's a podcast. Just lay it all out there for us.

Parker Sargent: Sure. Our really big event that we're doing this summer is our annual or biannual archive show. That's a whole weekend where you can come, you can see displays about different subjects of Cherry Grove. We're talking about the fire department, we're talking about shows that we've done, we're talking about House Blessings. You can look at photo albums. People are very tactile, we've noticed. We love to bring out the photo albums and let people go through those. That weekend, we'll also be premiering our film Making Miss Cherry's, a documentary about the drag competition that happens in Cherry Grove. That'll be a big thing.

You can either join us in the theater in Cherry Grove or you can live stream it with us. Again, that's available on our website. The other thing that we'll be doing all season is having walking tour exhibitions of different artists. We're featuring three different artists, photography, who have contributed to the archives and also to the history of Cherry Grove. That is Warren Boyd Wexler, Koitz, and Susan Kravitz.

David Furst: You are busy, and all episodes of your podcast, Queer Grove--

Parker Sargent: There's more to come, actually. There's seven, I think are released now, but we have many more to come, actually.

David Furst: This is an oral history. This is different from film and book, and everything else. This is a completely different oral history of the Grove.

Parker Sargent: Really taking from the 10 years of interviews that I've done with people, usually, I'm doing a film about something specific, like In The Meat Rack, which is about the Meat Rack. I'm only going to pluck out a little bit of an interview with somebody, but I interview them for, like, an hour, especially if they're older members of the community. I get so much information from them. This podcast was a way for all of us on the board to sit down and go, "What is the story we want to tell about Cherry Grove?" Then use all these voices to tell the story.

David Furst: Well, I feel like I'm keeping you from all of your work that you have to do. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm sorry, so sorry if I didn't get to your call. I know there's a lot of other calls coming through. We've been talking about the legacy of Fire Island with Queer Grove podcast host, Making Miss Cherry's filmmaker, and Cherry Grove Archives Collection creative director, Parker Sargent. Thank you for joining us.

Parker Sargent: Thank you for letting me talk about Cherry Grove.