CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/30/2013

BBC Video: Fire Island Modernist Traces 1960s Gay Culture through Art and Architecture

This week on The BBC Magazine Online, Leigh Paterson meets with Fire Island Modernist author Christopher Rawlins (on Fire Island) to find out how the gay community and the homes they lived in reflected a changing culture in 1960s America.

"Sixty miles East of New York City lies Fire Island; a narrow wind-swept strip of sandy terrain facing the Atlantic Ocean. This barrier island, with beach dwellings dotting its thick sandy brush, is home to around 300 residents year-round but thousands pour in on summer weekends.

Historically, Fire Island has been a particularly popular designation for gay and lesbian tourists from New York City. In a new book, Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction, Christopher Rawlins examines this culture and a modernist architect who helped shape it."

Click here to see Christopher Rawlins' interview with the BBC.