Daniel Nardicio, producer and nightlife promoter in New York City, decided not to throw his weekly DWorld Underwear Party this summer on Fire Island due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, in association with Gay Men’s Health Crisis and activist Taylor Shubert, he put his skills to work for the community. Nardicio has put together a talented team of drag queens and go-go boys that, every weekend, go out in the two mainly LGBTQ+ communities of Fire Island, the Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove, to give away masks and hand sanitizer to the people who they encounter and all those who arrive on the ferry.
The so called “Fire Island Covid Destroyers” want to promote healthy behaviors on Fire Island to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Using donated funds, the drag queens and go-go dancers will also infiltrate beach parties to encourage social distancing, and educate and remind island visitors about how to protect themselves and others while still having fun. The office of the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is supplying masks and hand sanitizer to be distributed throughout Cherry Grove and the Pines.
According to Nardicio “Fire Island was an epicenter of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and we learned then that we must take care of our own.” GMHC CEO Kelsey Louie, said that “decades of HIV prevention efforts have proven that shaming and judgment don’t get people to change behaviors—but reaching out with love, support, and harm-reduction options do.”
Basque born photographer koitz has recently published his photo book koitz Gay Fire Island that covers 14 summers in the Pines and the Grove. The book includes a foreword by American writer Patrick Ryan, and introduction by curator Nicholas Davies.
koitz Gay Fire Island includes 90 photographs, and has a cut-out of a triangle on the cover. This is open to many interpretations, but according to the photographer, “it is intended as an homage to all the gay men who were sent to concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and who were forced to wear a downward-pointing pink triangle sewn onto their clothes as a badge of shame. It is also a reminder that the LGBTQ+ people, have come a long way even though there is still a lot of work to do to be totally accepted by everyone.”
