Cherry Grove: America's First Gay and Lesbian Town | LGBTQ History
Long before Stonewall, there was a little town on the sand where people could step off the ferry and be themselves.
Tonight we travel to Cherry Grove on Fire Island, often called America's first gay and lesbian town. From the black cherry trees of 1868 to the 1938 hurricane that cleared the way, from the Cherry Grove Follies of 1948 staged in a carriage house floated across the bay, to Audrey Hartmann's walk down the beach in 1953, the jury acquittals that ended the police raids in 1968, and the first Invasion of the Pines on July 4, 1976.
Along the way: a ferry crossing the Great South Bay…
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