Part of the Gay Fire Island Guide — bars, events & things to do.
Fire Island, New York
Harborside home of Low Tea, the Pines' afternoon tea dance.
Operating since the early 1960s, the Blue Whale is the historic harborside anchor of Fire Island Pines and the birthplace of the gay tea dance. The tradition started here in 1966 as a workaround for laws that barred men from dancing together, and grew into a daily ritual. The bar still hosts "Low Tea" in the late afternoon, the first stop in the Pines' evening circuit before High Tea at the Pavilion. Its original 1960s mosaic floor, where that first tea dance happened, is being preserved through the waterfront's renovations. The Blue Whale sits at the center of the Tryst Hospitality complex alongside the Pavilion and the pool club, and it carries weight in queer history beyond the dance floor: it was an early gathering and benefit site during the first years of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The tea dance it started has run here every season since. For anyone visiting the Pines, this is the room where the community's traditions began.
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