In 1976 Nelson Sullivan was enrolled in film school when he shot this Super 8 film at Fire Island, a gay-friendly New York City getaway. Around this time, Nelson and his partner owned a salon on Fire Island called David/Nelson.
So few historical photographs and videos of gay life from the 1960’s 70’s and early 80’s still exist. This video is gem and a time machine which takes us back to an earlier carefree time before our world went mad and AIDS destroyed almost an entire generation of gay men.
If you have any photos or video’s of gay landmarks, events, and people from the 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s. please feel free to send them to will@back2stonewall.com I would love to post them here and share them with everyone.
Halcyon days! Thanks for sharing.
So it looks like we partied and put out flags for July 4, 1976. Pretty much like everyone else.
Although I stayed in the Pines through much of the 70’s I remember the Grove as a wild place to party….so glad I survived the excessive revelry of that period in gay history.
There was good reason why so little documentation exists from the seventies I suppose. I stayed at a gay hotel on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale around 1978 or 79. It is now long gone. It was one of those hotels with many floors that overlooked a center courtyard and a disco in the basement. I was excited to be there and innocently took some pictures from above and was immediately yelled at to stop by hotel management. Pictures were not allowed for privacy reasons. I was stunned. I suppose I have the pictures somewhere but have not seen them in over 30 years.
The Marlin Beach was legendary. I too stayed there a lot.
What is the song playing in the background, anyone know ??
Sad that most of these guys are probably dead from AIDS. Such is the case with those “halcyon” days of incessant, unprotected sex with uncountable partners. Very sad.
It is a film, not a video.
It was a film that was transferred to video and uploaded if you want to be exact
Dear Mr. Kohler, with deepest thanks and heart aching happpiness I watched the movie you posted about fire island…smiled then had a melancholy moment. Oh thank my God that I remember those times. No other gay generation will ever know the love and innocent beauty. My heart just pounded as I watched my early gay life. Seems so very very far away not. THANK YOU jimmy summers, north carolina 11/15/56
Thank you so much for your kind words Jim. You just made all this work so worthwhile.
Peace
Will
I am proud to be bisexual even though I only kissed 2 girls and I don’t care what other people think or thinks I should be. Thank you Fire Island and Cherry Grove!!!
Summer-1976….”The Bi-Centennial’ celebration and the start of “Disco Madness.” …..”Heaven is truly a place on Earth….and Cherry Grove is such a place and always will be !”