Longtime Pines resident and “Beach” co-organizer Ron Martin, who began serving on the Fire Island Property Owners’ Association in 1978, the youngest gay man on a mostly straight board, remembers the divisions that needed addressing, or at least papering over, if the party was to be a success. It was an ambitious event, ten months in the making, and required an unprecedented level of trust and collaboration from different parts of the community. The party, simply named “Beach”, was scheduled for the following summer. When the idea for an all-night fundraising party came up at a department meeting in the summer of 1978, plans quickly developed, and the mostly straight members of the fire department began to collaborate with the gay men who had already developed quite a reputation for throwing elaborate summer bashes. It was evident in the late 1970s that the Pines needed a new fire truck, but it lacked the funds to buy one. Numerous establishments on the island have burned down in suspected arson attacks, like Duffy’s in Cherry Grove in 1956, but a similar number have been razed by freakish accidents and spontaneous fires. ![]() True to its name, fires are not uncommon on the island due to a combination of factors, including vicious winds and the precarious timber construction of the oceanfront. Being in effect a hamlet, with provisions and services in miniature, the Pines had only a small, volunteer-run fire department.
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