The New York island hideaway that inspired Truman Capote and WH Auden

Telegraph

23-03-2025

The Sayville Ferry Terminal is just like any other, until you notice the collage of intriguing photos, some black and white, cluttering the walls. In the pictures dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, men are flopped on top of one another looking relaxed and happy.
In the café by the ticket booth, mostly male groups see off frozen margaritas at 11am. They'll set you back $14 but a plate of fries is just a handful of change, a reminder that you've long left New York City. Sayville, a hamlet deep into the suburbs on the south shore of Long Island, is an hour and a half's drive east from Manhattan, and from where passengers make the half-hour crossing to Fire Island.
For more than 100 years, the destination has been a safe space for LGBTQ people, a strip of sand offering solace and acceptance away from the judgement and prejudices of the day. It remains the undisputed day trip or weekend getaway for queer New Yorkers wanting to connect with their community. The Village People even had a song about it.
Many of the 20th century's great creative thinkers journeyed here, the sand dunes and endless-feeling beaches becoming muse for their writing. WH Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, Frank O'Hara and Oscar Wilde were some of those who visited, and while many wrote here, the privacy and seclusion also meant Fire Island became a place of sexual expression too, before homosexuality was decriminalised in New York in 1980.
On the island there is refreshingly little to do. The boat docks at either the Fire Island Pines or Cherry Grove ferry terminals, which take about 20 minutes to wander between on foot. Explore wide stretches of beach that feel surprisingly exotic for New York, swim, stroll on boardwalks, then drink in the handful of bars, perhaps forging new friendships. That's really it – and it's heaven.
Cherry Grove is the most built-up part, though it comprises just a handful of options for refreshments. There are a few bars, a pizzeria and The Grove Hotel, where drag performers swoosh across a runway over the swimming pool when there are events on. There are no cars allowed in this area and you could do a lap of the whole of Cherry Grove in five minutes, from the waterfront dancefloor at Cherry's On The Bay to the ice cream parlours and back to the deserted beaches.
Auden epitomised the freedoms of the place in his 1948 poem Pleasure Island, but perhaps the biggest literary claim to fame came in the 1950s, when Truman Capote penned Breakfast at Tiffany's in Carrington House, one of the earliest homes, built around 1912 for theatre director Frank Carrington. Today it is the island's cultural venue, hosting ad-hoc art exhibitions (check posters at the ferry terminals for information) and with grounds in which to walk around.
Sexual freedoms often became conflated with hedonism, and by the middle of last century Fire Island had developed a reputation as a place of excess, an assessment that still rings true. Frank O'Hara, a leader of the New York School of Poets and establisher of a new stream-of-conscious style, epitomised the island's dual purpose for work and play. One of his wittiest works is A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island. Tragically, O'Hara was run over by a beach buggy here on one drunken night in 1966, which led to his death.
Following the social revolutions of the 1960s, Fire Island's reputation was increasingly eulogised in writing. Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran has evocative descriptions of a place where 'you could lose your heart, your reputation, your contact lenses.' It is also celebrated in contemporary writing, most notably Matthew Lopez's epic two-part play The Inheritance, one of the most seminal 21st-century queer texts.
Queer women have been finding safety here too since at least the 1950s, though their history is less well documented. The actor Wanda Sykes is the biggest female celebrity advocate today, doing ad-hoc appearances in the bars. The 2018 documentary Grove Girls recounted some of this history, while the growing number of female artist residences housed at Carrington House are perhaps beginning to redress the gender (im)balance somewhat.
'It represents freedom,' says Bobby Bonanno, who first visited the place in 1976 and set up the Fire Island Historical Society in 2010 to protect its historical legacy. Bonanno runs historical tours weekly, taking guests for walks around the island.
Today, there is very little left of the basic hut structures that writers would have inhabited in years gone by. Most have been demolished to make way for shimmering glass rental homes that look more like Bond villain lairs. Locals worry greedy landlords are pricing visitors out, but with such a small amount of space available and the island's proximity to New York Cit y, perhaps gentrification was inevitable.
It's already a thrill to be at the beach in New York, somewhere you might not typically associate with fly-and-flop holidaying, but Fire Island is on another level entirely. You'll need to book ahead of time because accommodation is scarce and sells out, but there truly is nowhere quite like it.