The Grove Hotel Fire-Cherry Grove, NY-September 22, 2009 by Barbara Ann Levy

I spent time in a personal growth group with new friends at the beach in Cherry Grove on The Fire Island National Seashore. It was based on The Artists Way a book of creative exercises written by Julia Cameron to be done with others or alone that were designed by her to allow one’s artistic process to unfold and blossom. My gallery, The Barbara Ann Levy Gallery, formerly located in The Ice Palace Entertainment Complex in this location was born in that group.

When I lived in Cherry Grove I frequently took long lazy walks to collect seaglass in the early morning hours before the tourists set up their beach umbrellas for the day at the ocean’s edge. Jackie, a former resident now deceased used to hold a piece of beach glass to the light and with an impish grin remind me that “…the best things in life are free”.

This morning when I signed onto Facebook I found several messages from friends who still live there. I left the Grove in 2006. Last night there were two fires, two of many in the last 15 years. I was told that many rooms in The Grove Hotel were destroyed. There was a second fire on Gerard Walk by Bayview Walk, a residential area. The second fire started in a trash can.

In April 1999 6 houses were hit by fires that spread quickly through the neigborhood. One house “Peckerwood” was burned to the ground. The fire was so large that it could be seen from The South Shore. A cause was never determined.

photo credit: Jim Kelly

On April 8, 2001, I received an e-mail from a friend who told me that Michael’s Restaurant a favorite hub of the Cherry Grove community burned to the ground. It was a contained fire. It did not spread. It was thought to be an electrical fire. Michael’s was the gathering place and heart of the Grove and had become an institution. Like the effect of the trade tower bombings on the people of NYC , the Michael’s fire destroyed the Cherry Grove point of orientation and common ground.

On March 24, 2002 The Bayleaf Restaurant, formerly The Monster, a famous disco from the 1970’s and 80’s was largely destroyed by fire. This one was arson and there was evidence, an accelerant. Although not a point of orientation for residents, the Bayleaf started to create an atmosphere of conviviality after the Michael’s fire. It became a fun place to gather to sing around a grand piano and to attend a regular Broadway cabaret night led by Rick Leonard, a NYC musical director. It helped to right the Grove and to clean up a profoundly decimated blackened downtown landscape. At one point a graffitti artist painted “Go Away ” on the side of the building. Many of us speculated that this was a hate crime or one predicated on religious extremism since it happened on the Palm Sunday weekend.

At the time Homeland Security was watching and eventually took action. In 2003 they produced a report called U.S. Fire Administration/Technical Report Series , Special Report: Firefighter Arson USFA-TR-141/January 2003. The report revealed a serious problem frequently found within volunteer firefighting: firefighter arson.

Between 1992-1994 Suffolk County had multiple incidents of firefighter arson. This cost the county $1.5 million and one death. In 1992 a firefighter was arrested and convicted of setting a fire. In 1993 35 firefighters were arrested for arson. 8 of them were from Suffolk County.

Various reasons are cited in the literature about firefighter arson. The individual might be fascinated by fire or want to be seen as a hero when he steps up to help put the fire out. No matter the reason. The end result is the same: “…a serious erosion in public confidence in the volunteer firefighting services as a whole, and a loss of trust and morale within the volunteer companies themselves. This small number of individuals… places our communities and citizens at serious physical risk”. (p. 41) The intended heroism of the arsonist is never realized.

Anchor buildings that gave Cherry Grove its identity were either completely destroyed like Michael’s or had serious damage. The Bayleaf a famous discoteque from the 1980’s called The Monster was seriously damaged and The Grove Hotel had major damage .

As an art dealer I was frequently told some very tall tales by visitors. One afternoon in 2006 a visitor to my gallery told me that desperate developers stole a windmill, a gigantic large scale landmark so that they could develop the land where it stood in a neighboring community. This caught my attention. Landmarks like Michael’s Restaurant, The Bayleaf (The Monster) and The Grove Hotel give a community its identity and sense of place. The glbt identity is at stake in Cherry Grove as arsons and inadaquate building inspections continue to contribute to its unstable infrastructure. It will no doubt be rebuilt. The Grove has resilience. Its roots run deep.