Where Photography Preserves Queer History
Every photograph has a story.
For more than two decades, I've documented LGBTQ+ life through my camera—from the boardwalks of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove to the streets, theaters, and nightlife of New York City. Along the way, I've met remarkable artists, performers, activists, and everyday people whose stories deserve to be remembered.
This journal is where I share those stories.
You'll find original essays about queer history, Fire Island, documentary photography, portrait sessions, exhibitions, books, and the creative process behind my work. I'll also revisit photographs from my archive, revealing the moments, people, and memories behind the images.
Whether you're passionate about photography, LGBTQ+ culture, visual storytelling, or the history of Fire Island, I invite you to explore the people and places that have inspired my work for more than two decades.
These aren't just photographs—they're a living archive of a community, captured one moment at a time.
Welcome to the journal.
— koitz
Why koitz Thinks Gay Fire Island Deserves Another Photo Book
The Photographic Story of Gay Fire Island Isn’t Over
Queer New York nightlife photographer koitz keeps getting asked the same question: Will koitz Gay Fire Island ever be reissued?
But he isn’t interested in simply bringing the same book back to life. He has hundreds of photographs that never made it into the original, new stories to tell, and a different perspective on an island that may look familiar but has never really stood still.
Published in 2020, koitz Gay Fire Island captured a moment in the lives of the island’s LGBTQ+ communities even though it covered 14 summers. Since then, the world has changed—and Fire Island has changed with it, even if some of its rituals, characters, and unmistakable spirit remain remarkably intact. The pandemic marked a particularly extraordinary chapter. For koitz, photographs from the COVID years belong in any new book, documenting a time when the ways people gathered, connected, and experienced queer community were profoundly altered.
So why simply reissue a book when there is an opportunity to tell a bigger story
A New Gay Fire Island Book?
koitz believes there is room for a new coffee-table book about gay Fire Island—one that looks beyond nostalgia to capture the island as it is today, while preserving the moments that have shaped it. And any such project, he argues, should embrace both of its defining LGBTQ+ communities: Cherry Grove and the Fire Island Pines, each with its own character, history, and place in the island’s queer imagination.
He is open to proposals from publishers willing to take on the project. The question, then, is not so much whether koitz Gay Fire Island deserves a second life, but whether there is still an appetite for a new photographic portrait of a place that has meant so much to generations of LGBTQ+ people.
After all, an island can remain familiar while its story keeps evolving. And through koitz’s lens, there may be plenty more of that story left to tell.
Would you make room on your coffee table for a new book about gay Fire Island?
PHOTO STORY: Mitch in Wonderland
PHOTO STORY
Mitch Reflected in a Mirror in Black & White
For five years, koitz photographed Mitch in Southern California, creating an intimate and playful portrait of a particular time and place. From that body of work, twelve photographs were eventually selected and published in a postcard book titled Mitch in Wonderland, the second volume in the Pretty Gay postcard series.
Sadly, the series ended there. Only two Pretty Gay postcard books were ever published, and today both have become sought-after collectors’ items.
This photograph, however, never made it into Pretty Gay: Mitch in Wonderland. It remained outside the published collection, making it a rare glimpse into the larger body of work koitz created with Mitch over those five years.
Bruce Vilanch: A Hollywood Storyteller on Fire Island
PHOTO STORY
Hollywood Comes to Fire Island
Celebrities of all kinds have long made their way to Fire Island. Some come to visit friends, hoping to stay under the radar. Others, like Wanda Sykes, have a house on the island and spend their summers here. And some come to perform.
New York queer nightlife photographer koitz remembers seeing comedian and writer Bruce Vilanch on Fire Island at least twice—first in the Fire Island Pines in 2010, and again in Cherry Grove in 2013.
The first time, as koitz remembers it, Vilanch came to the Pines in July to host the Fire Island Dance Festival, a benefit born out of the AIDS crisis and organized by Dancers Responding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
Three years later, Vilanch was back—this time in Cherry Grove, as part of Daniel Nardicio’s Icon Series in 2023. The series brought Broadway stars, Hollywood personalities, and figures from queer culture to the stage at the Ice Palace.
This photograph, taken by koitz at the Ice Palace in 2013, captures Bruce Vilanch during that visit.
koitz spotted Vilanch at the Ice Palace and approached him, asking if he would pose for a photograph. Vilanch immediately agreed. Without hesitation, he jumped onto the photo booth and struck a playful expression, as though he were already being photographed by the machine itself, while koitz quickly raised his camera and captured the moment.
The whole exchange lasted only a few seconds, but there was an effortless grace to it. Once he had taken the photograph, koitz thanked Vilanch, and the writer simply carried on with his business, leaving behind a brief but memorable encounter.
Bruce Vilanch
Vilanch was born in New York City and built a career behind the scenes as one of Hollywood’s best-known comedy writers. He wrote for the Academy Awards and became particularly associated with actress and television host Whoopi Goldberg.
But Vilanch was also a performer in his own right, appearing on Broadway and in live theater, including the musical Hairspray.
On Fire Island, though, audiences got something more personal: the stories, the jokes, and the Hollywood history of a performer who had spent decades behind the curtain.
When Gay Fire Island Gets Political
Fire Island: Queer Paradise, Complicated
What we call Gay Fire Island —the communities of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove— can be seen as a microcosm of the broader political landscape in the United States. Politics and controversy are not absent from island life; on the contrary, they are often part of the conversation. Residents and visitors do not always agree, and those disagreements can sometimes become public. From time to time, they are also picked up by LGBTQ+ media outlets, where local disputes can take on a larger profile.
For instance, in 2025, the Pines and the Grove were among the communities that participated in protests against the Trump administration, including gatherings held as part of No Kings Day. We also advocate for causes we believe are just, such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Over the years, the community has found itself at the center of more than a few controversial debates. On Fire Island, disagreement is not necessarily something to be avoided; it is part of the texture of island life. The Pines and the Grove are small, intensely social communities, and like any community, they reflect the tensions, debates and contradictions of the larger world around them. We hope that this willingness to engage, even when the conversations become uncomfortable, never disappears.
New York nightlife and queer photographer koitz has been documenting both the celebrations and the more contentious moments within the community for over two decades. His work captures the island not only at its most joyful, but also during the moments when debate, disagreement and controversy become part of its public life.
The Fire Island Tea Dance Mystery Solved!
The Tea Dance Mystery Solved!
It’s a story that has become part of Fire Island folklore but recently, we heard a different version.
A few weeks ago, queer New York nightlife photographer koitz crossed paths with Ana Matronic.
ANA MATRONIC
Ana is a storyteller, DJ and performer best known as the co-lead singer of pop phenomenon Scissor Sisters, and is the presenter of her own show every Saturday night from 6-10pm on Virgin Radio in the UK. She is the creator and host of history podcast Good Time Sallies, building on her ten year experience as a broadcaster for the BBC where she hosted her weekly show Dance Devotion from 2017-2022 on Radio 2.
Ana’s broadcasting history includes hosting the Eurovision semi-finals on television and radio, and DJ’ing live for special events broadcast from Ibiza, Blackpool, Manchester, and London’s Hyde Park. Ana enjoys a summer residency on Fire Island at Cherry Grove’s legendary home of disco, the Ice Palace, where she acts as house historian. She is featured in the joint BBC/PBS documentary Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution, sharing Fire Island’s contribution to disco and the rise of the club DJ. Ana Matronic lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Seth.
THE TEA DANCE
In conversation, Ana Matronic suggested something that caught our attention: what if the tea dance actually began in Cherry Grove?
Now, anyone familiar with Fire Island knows that the relationship between the Grove and the Pines comes with its own mythology — and, occasionally, a little friendly rivalry.
So naturally, we had questions.
Where did the tea dance really begin? Who started it? And how did this afternoon ritual become such an enduring part of Fire Island’s queer history?
Rather than rely on the stories we’ve heard over the years, we decided to go looking for the history behind the legend.
We spoke with artist and cultural historian Ana Matronic herself, to see what the record — and the memories of those who came before us — can tell us.
In other words, we went looking for the truth…and, along the way, we got the tea and even more!
Ana, when we saw you a few weeks ago you told us that the tea dance may have began in Cherry Grove. What can you tell us about it?
The tea dance as a phenomenon predates both Fire Island and the rise of the LGBTQ+ community as a sociopolitical class. The first tea dances ever held happened in the late 1700s or early 1800s, but the first on Fire Island were in Cherry Grove. According to Esther Newton’s book, the first and most definitive history of the island, “Despite the notoriety that tea dance gained in the Pines, narrators were emphatic and certain that it was invented by Jimmy Merry in the Grove, after which it was copied by John Whyte in the Pines, and subsequently became a gay American institution."
You also mentioned that it really began in France. Can you explain that?
Yes it did begin in France. In the late 1700s/early 1800s with the breakdown of the monarchy and the rise of popular forms of music and dancing with the Waltz, the dance floor began to democratize as well: Balls, which were elaborate courtship rituals for aristocracy, gave way to dances or as they were known in France “dansants” which were less formal gatherings designed to teach people the steps of the highly complex new dances like the Waltz. Some were public, some were private, and came in many forms that denoted who could attend and the level of refreshment attendees could expect. For example, a soiree dansant was a public ball open to all classes, while a matinee dansant was held during the day. A dejuner dansant was one where lunch was served, while a thé dansant (or tea dance) was an informal dance where one could attend in day clothes or ball attire without a hat, and expect light refreshments. In the mid-1800s when Tea Time became coded as an afternoon phenomenon, so too did tea dances. By the 1910s a Tea Dance meant an informal afternoon dance gathering where light refreshments were served.
So, who in your opinion started the tea dance in the United States?
It’s not opinion, it’s fact - look up “tea dance” on Wikipedia and you’ll see it’s older than Fire Island. I knew tea dances pre-dated Fire Island by virtue of being an F Scott Fitzgerald fan, who wrote about tea dances in his work (read “The Pearl and the Fur” for one), and was even arrested at one in Paris for jumping into a fountain! Tea dances were started in the US in New York and New Orleans and became especially popular as “coming out” events for debutantes in society starting in the late 1800s. The first reference I found for such an event was in 1890 in New York City, held as the coming out party for the daughter of influential doctor and hospital founder Francis Delafield held at Sherry’s Rooms, a popular restaurant in Manhattan. The first reference for a tea dance I could find in any newspaper was from the Charleston Mercury newspaper, 1821.
Was it really born on Fire Island?
No, it was not born on Fire Island. In the 1910s the popularity of the Tea Dance exploded in New York City and hotels employed professional dancers to teach the steps of the wildly popular ragtime dances and the tango. Tango teas were so popular they became a new way for men to make money as dance instructors and possibly more - this is the era where the term “gigolo” was born. Even better, the term “Tango Pirate” was invented to define this new class of young hooligans and their threat to respectable young girls - but it was also a stepping stone to possible fame and fortune. Ever heard the name Rudolph Valentino? He was a Tango instructor in New York City. Yes, a tango pirate! We also know Valentino was gay - so the tea dance was by no means a queer invention, but queer folks were there from its inception, and were instrumental in its revival and relevance to today’s culture.
What are you up to on Fire Island (DJing, etc.)?
I am the in-house historian and resident DJ at the Ice Palace. I DJ every Monday for Bingo with Ariel Sinclair, every Tuesday for my party Queerdo, and once a month for the Underwear Party. I’m also the DJ for the Drag Invasion at the Ice Palace and a judge for the Miss Fire Island pageant, and the newest member of the Cherry Grove Archives.
Where do you reside, the Pines or the Grove?
I reside in the Pines and work in Cherry Grove.
Why do you come here?
I come to Fire Island for the people, the culture, the community, and the landscape. In that order.
PHOTO STORY: koitz photographed DJ Junior Vasquez on two occasions on Fire Island
PHOTO STORY
Photographing DJ Junior Vasquez on Fire Island
Queer New York nightlife photographer koitz photographed DJ Junior Vasquez on two occasions at the Pavilion in the Fire Island Pines, capturing a small but revealing glimpse of one of the most celebrated DJs of his generation.
Junior Vasquez
By the early 1990s, Vasquez was at the absolute height of his fame in New York City. The years from 1992 to 1995 marked the peak of his legendary Sound Factory era, when he was no longer simply a famous DJ but a bona fide New York nightlife institution. His influence extended well beyond the dance floor. Vasquez became renowned for taking the vocals of famous singers and rebuilding their songs almost from the ground up for the club, transforming familiar pop records into expansive, often radically different house tracks.
His relationship with Madonna produced some of his best-known work. In 1994, Madonna commissioned Vasquez to remix her single “Secret,” resulting in four official Junior Vasquez versions, including the “Junior’s Sound Factory Mix.” It was precisely this ability to take the voice of an internationally famous pop star and reshape it for a sweaty, demanding club crowd that helped make Vasquez such a powerful figure in New York dance music.
Like many DJs of his generation, Vasquez also brought that reputation to Fire Island, where DJs could play to intensely devoted crowds of men throughout the summer. koitz encountered him there twice, both times at the Pavilion in the Pines.
What koitz remembers about photographing Junior Vasquez
The first occasion was August 30, 2008. koitz remembers the assignment as a big deal. He was instructed to wait outside the Pavilion at a specific time, where he was met by Vasquez and the Pavilion's large entourage. Then he waited. He recalls that it may have been roughly half an hour before the internationally renowned DJ decided he was ready to be photographed. koitz was finally brought into the tiny booth above the dance floor, where he managed to take two photographs before being immediately escorted out.
What stayed with him was how transactional the encounter felt. He remembers the booth as tiny and austere, perched directly above the dance floor, a far cry from the glamour one might associate with photographing one of the world's most famous DJs. There was little time for conversation or experimentation: Vasquez posed, and the moment was over.
A year later, on July 4, 2009, koitz was asked to photograph Vasquez at exactly the same location. This time, the occasion was the Pavilion’s 30th anniversary, and Vasquez was DJing for the celebration. koitz remembers little about the encounter itself. Once again, the process was remarkably transactional. Vasquez posed for one photograph and turned away from the camera. koitz asked him to pose once more, which he did, and that was it.
Before leaving, koitz asked whether he could take a few photographs of the dance floor from the booth. He was given permission, but only briefly. A few seconds later, he was asked to leave.
Those fleeting encounters—two photographs in 2008, another portrait and a handful of dance-floor images in 2009—are now part of koitz’s extensive archive documenting queer life on Fire Island. Seen together, they capture not only Junior Vasquez at a late point in his extraordinary career, but also something of the peculiar machinery surrounding celebrity in the gay nightlife world: the entourage, the anticipation, the tiny booth above the crowd, and the very brief moment when the famous DJ finally turned toward the camera.
Fire Island Performer Porsche Sings a Version of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 at the Ice Palace
Porsche Sings a Version of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 at the Ice Palace. According to Porsche, Hedda Lettuce was the genius behind those lyrics
(This was originally posted on the Facebook page Gay Fire Island on August 26, 2006 after Dolly Parton passed away the day before at the age of 80)
Artist Vicky Heller: A Love Letter to Fire Island in Watercolor
PROFILE
From London to Fire Island: The Art of Vicky Heller
If you’re an early riser on Fire Island, there’s a good chance you’ve seen her: a familiar figure jogging through the Grove, the Pines, the Meat Rack, or the Sunken Forest — some of her favorite places on the island.
Her name is Vicky Heller, an artist who is as well-known as she is loved in two of Fire Island’s most iconic communities: Cherry Grove and the Fire Island Pines.
Vicky has spent every summer in Cherry Grove since 2008. And while the Grove is her home base, the Pines is another place she loves dearly. In fact, she visits her friends there almost every single day.
Vicky was born and raised in London and now lives in Chelsea, Manhattan, but when summer arrives, she heads back to the place she has come to love so much that she says she simply can’t imagine living in the United States without spending her summers in Cherry Grove.
18 summers in Cherry Grove
Over the years, she’s had several homes in the Grove. She first lived on Surf Walk, on the west side of the community. Then came a short stay at Pride House, the oldest house in the Grove. And for well over a decade now, she has called a beach house on the east end home.
But Vicky isn’t just a familiar face on the island. She’s a professional artist, creating artwork for the fashion and home-furnishings industries. Her specialty is watercolor — and that passion for detail would eventually lead her to take on what may have been one of the most ambitious artistic projects imaginable on Fire Island.
In 2023, Vicky decided to paint a map of the entire Fire Island Pines.
The idea came from a simple observation: there really wasn’t a detailed map of the Pines. So Vicky decided to create one herself — and not just a map showing walks and buildings. She wanted to paint every single house.
And knowing Vicky’s obsessive attention to detail, that meant she wanted to get everything right — from the architecture of each home to the color of the trees, and even the color of individual swimming pools.
What started as a self-assignment quickly became a monumental undertaking. Vicky jokes that the project almost killed her.
The Pines is a big community, and painting it house by house, detail by detail, took months of painstaking work. But eventually, she finished.
And in 2023, she brought her enormous watercolor — an impressive 80 inches long — to the Art Show at Whyte Hall in the Pines.
It was a huge success.
Vicky was thrilled with the result. And that success inspired her to take on another community close to her heart: Cherry Grove.
This time, she painted the place where she has spent so many happy summers, surrounded by friends — including her dear friend and fellow Brit, Keith Starkey with whom she has shared a house on the island for many years.
Vicky describes that painting as another labor of love. But compared with the Pines, she says, it was a little easier simply because the Grove is a smaller community.
Together, the two paintings have become much more than maps. They are portraits of two beloved Fire Island communities — and for many people, they are a way of seeing their own little piece of paradise preserved forever.
Every house, every detail, immortalized in watercolor.
And Vicky hopes the paintings will continue to bring people joy long after she is gone. As she puts it, hopefully people will still buy the maps, look at them, and see the houses they love so much.
Each map takes months to complete.
NEXT: A Map of the Meat Rack
And Vicky is already at work on her next project: a painting of the Meat Rack.
This one, she says, comes with a special responsibility.
The Meat Rack is a deeply meaningful place for so many people on Fire Island, and Vicky says she wants to do justice to it — and treat it with the respect it deserves.
Her maps are available through her ETSY shop, giving Fire Islanders and visitors alike the chance to take a little piece of these communities home with them.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/VictoriaHellerStudio
FUN FACTS ABOUT VICKY
Vicky came to New York in 1995 because, by her own admission, she was partying a little too much in London. She planned to stay for just two weeks but she never left.
While out at a nightclub, she met a couple of guys who worked at Calvin Klein. They helped her get a job, she got a visa — and the rest, as they say… well, you know!
And honestly, aren’t we all glad they did?
Vicky’s London connections also include a rather colorful character who would go on to become internationally known: Aidan Shaw, the former porn star who later in life became a fashion model and gave his name to a character in Sex and the City.
In the Pines, Vicky developed another close friendship — this time with renowned DJ Lina Bradford.
Then there’s her extended Fire Island family: Stevie, Chris, and the whole crew at the Pines Liquor Store, where Vicky is a regular.
So regular, in fact, that her friends have given her visits there their own name: “Vicky Tea.”
She has also designed many of the T-shirts sold at the store.
So if you see that familiar figure running through the Grove, the Pines or the Sunken Forest early in the morning, now you know who it is.
It’s Vicky Heller — artist, mapmaker, Londoner, New Yorker, Fire Island lover… and perhaps above all, someone who has spent years turning the places and communities she loves into works of art that can be treasured for generations.
PHOTO STORY: Photographing Underwear Models on Fire Island
PHOTO STORY: koitz’s Photo Shoot for the DWorld Underwear Party on a Freezing Day on Fire Island
Back in the day, the models for the flyers for Daniel Nardicio's DWorld Fire Island Underwear Party were photographed right there on the island. Queer nightlife photographer koitz was behind the camera for several of those shoots.
But there’s one he remembers especially well: May 15th, 2016.
It was supposed to be a warm spring day, a preview of the summer to come. Instead, Fire Island greeted the models with bitter cold.
And once you’re on an island, there’s not much room for Plan B. Sending the models home wasn’t really an option. So the shoot went ahead.
If you were on Fire Island that summer, you probably remember seeing the photograph at the top on the party flyers.
But there’s another photograph—taken just moments before this one. It’s what photographers call a lighting test shot.
Look closely at the models’ faces. You can almost feel the cold. It was so cold that only four of them showed up that day.
The rest of the crew was bundled up in sweaters and jackets. Meanwhile, these poor guys had to strip down to their underwear and pretend they were basking in the middle of a warm summer day.
The sky, however, wasn’t exactly cooperating.
Look at those clouds.
Still, the models were fantastic. They posed, they smiled, they played along—and somehow, they made the whole thing look effortless. You’d never know they were freezing.
We felt terrible for them.
When the shoot was finally over, they headed back to the house, jumped straight into the jacuzzi, and warmed themselves up.
Of course, we took a few more photographs.
After all, there were flyers to make.
PHOTO STORY: Campobello, the Fire Island House Where Memories Were Made
Campobello was the House in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, Where Anything Could Happen
For eighteen summers, Campobello was home.
On the quiet west side of Cherry Grove, close to the path leading toward the Sunken Forest, stands Campobello — the house where koitz spent his summers, mostly on weekends, and photographed many of the people who became part of his world.
It was also here that several interviews for In the Meat Rack, the documentary he directed with trans filmmaker Parker Sargent, were recorded. The house became, in a way, both a home and a backdrop to the life koitz was documenting.
But Campobello was never really a private place.
The door was open. Anyone could walk in, almost at any time, and they were welcomed — usually with a glass of pink Prosecco, or perhaps several glasses. It was koitz’s favorite.
There were parties. There were long afternoons and late nights. People came to celebrate birthdays, milestones, friendships — or simply the fact that they were there. That day. That weekend. That summer.
For a while, Campobello seemed to hold all of it: the laughter, the photographs, the stories, the unexpected encounters, the sense that something might happen at any moment.
Some of the photographs that would later appear in koitz’s 2020 coffee-table book, koitz Gay Fire Island, were made here too.
The house is still there.
But koitz, his husband, and the friends who filled Campobello with life are no longer in that house.
And perhaps that is what makes those eighteen summers feel even more suspended in time.
Because Campobello was never just a house. It was a place of welcome. Of friendship. Of celebration. A place where the door was open, the Prosecco was pink, and almost anything could happen.
And for those who were there, it still does.
