Saving the History of the Pines on Fire Island
Erosion is a theme of the Pines, with its wind-tortured dunes and combustible wood buildings. But Bobby Bonanno, 65, who works as a hairdresser in Bellport, N.Y., and has visited the Pines for more than four decades, was concerned about the erosion of memory.
To protect the heritage of the Pines, the affluent, largely L.G.B.T.Q. hamlet near the center of Fire Island, he decided to create the Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society. “It’s become my passion project,” he said of the historical society he founded in 2010, because “a lot of these young people who come here to party” — most taking the ferry from Sayville on the South Shore of Long Island — “they have no idea that gay men in the ’40s or ’50s were handcuffed to poles here when cops came over for night raids.” The police would take the men back to Sayville and jail them, Mr.
Bonanno said. “And if your name was published in the paper, you were ruined.” He does not want to depress young people and tries to make even grim history “palatable” by collecting photographs and documents and conducting interviews, which he posts on the website that is the historical society’s principal venue.
He tells the story of how in the first half of the 20th century, the Pines had a Coast Guard lifesaving station and was known as Lone Hill.
