Jess Russel Landing in Sea Plane, Great South Bay, circa 1950, was gifted to the Cherry Grove Archives Collection by John Sorensen and Walter Caron.
It represents a departure from Fire Island News cover art images, but we couldn’t resist it. The smartly dressed gentleman in a bowtie athletically steps off what is now a vintage-era seaplane and begins to wade through the Great South Bay to reach his destination – which, of course, is Fire Island – Cherry Grove, to be exact. Markers behind the seaplane in the composition give that away. It is a nostalgic image of a bygone era for Fire Island, as the Fire Island National Seashore phased out the use of private seaplanes to access the Island after it was established in 1964.
“What’s so wonderful about Fire Island and Cherry Grove is that you can look at the pictures from the 1950s, and it looks very similar to the town now, right?” said Parker Sargent, Creative Director of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection (CGAC). “The dock is where the dock is, the hotel’s where the hotel was, the post office is where the post office was. So, you can look at a picture like this and still see where you’re standing. But wow, they managed to land a plane here? How amazing! I think that’s what always excites people when they see these images from the past and see how people used this same space differently than before.”
The Cherry Grove Archives Collection is dedicated to preserving the past, ensuring that future generations will remember. Their mission of collecting, preserving, and sharing the story of the earliest known haven for LGBTQ+ people and their allies in the United States is a tall order, but one that they have prevailed in. Their beginnings include fastidious collectors, such as the late Harold Seeley, but others have built upon the work he started after his passing in 2012.
“Harold was the first person to start collecting things,” explained Sargent, “But we have evidence as far back as the fifties of people stamping ‘Cherry Grove Archives’ on slides. So, there was an intention to document ourselves from the beginning… In 2015, we had our first film festival.”
A strong CGAC board, comprising diverse skill sets and life experiences, contributed significantly to the organization’s rapid growth. In 2020, they mounted an exhibition at the Stonewall National Museum in Wilton Manors, Florida, called Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove. The exhibition was hailed as a great success, but unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns forced its closure only weeks after it opened.
For another organization, this could have been the end, but Safe Haven would re-open the following year at the New York Historical Society in May of 2021, a venue in which the exhibition commanded national attention from media outlets, including Time Out, Vogue, Newsday, CBS News, The Advocate, and The New York Times.
2025 marks another pivotal year for CGAC, as it gained independent status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Since 2015, they have been operating under the umbrella of the Arts Project of Cherry Grove (APCG).
So, why the switch?
“In 2015, [APCG] became our fiscal sponsor, but we have just expanded so quickly since then,” explained Sargent. “In the last ten years, we’ve just done so much, and we are just growing by leaps and bounds. So, we were creating a second job for the APCG Treasurer, and that’s unfair. It was time to unburden them. Also, we have two different mission statements. APCG’s mission statement is to put on shows. Ours is to preserve and present the history of Cherry Grove. We’re still very much a sister of APCG, and we’re going to be putting on a big exhibition of Rose Levine to celebrate her 70th year of performing in Cherry Grove over Labor Day weekend.”
Indeed, this summer, CGAC has a robust schedule of programming ahead:
Queer Grove Podcast: An accomplished documentary filmmaker, Sargent’s new podcast series explores the history of queer communities on Fire Island and beyond in the oral history tradition. Queer Grove visits both past and present with interviews from Cherry Grove residents, as well as special guests, including Joel Kim Booster, Esther Newton, Bianca Del Rio, Daniel Nardicio, Jimbo the Drag Clown, Thom “Panzi” Hansen, Bob “Rose” Levine, and Edie Windsor. New episodes will be released every Friday. Visit queergrove.com to tune in and learn more.
Making Miss Cherrys Film Premiere: This new documentary film by Parker Sargent chronicles Timothy Byars, also known as Sabel Scities, as he competes in the Miss Cherrys Allstars Pageant in 2022. Produced in coordination with CGAC, the film celebrates the competition’s 30-year history. A live screening premiere of the film will take place at the Cherry Grove Community House and Theater on Saturday, July 26, at 8 p.m.
The Safe Haven Book: In 2024, CGAC released a limited-edition book based on the 2020-2021 Safe Haven exhibition. The edition sold out quickly, so a second printing has been produced and will be available for purchase on the CGAC website beginning July 26.
Art Walks: Since early May, CGAC has been showcasing its community’s history through the works of Fire Island photographers with outdoor art walking tours. The first was in loving memory of the late Fire Island nature photographer Warren Boyd Wexler. The next tour celebrated the vivid and provocative imagery of koitz, which closes on July 6. In August, the third and final walking tour of the series pays homage to photographer Susan Kravitz, a frequent contributor to Fire Island News. Her sharp eye and precise technical skill have documented queer life on Fire Island over decades.
Visit cgarchives.org to learn more about these and other programs.
