Inhabitants
Fire Island is a very seasonal area, Housing is mostly stick-built bungalow-style with generous helpings of bamboo. Some are beachfront, built on the dunes of the Atlantic Ocean, while others are on board or concrete walks, like a miniaturized city. There are few residents in winter months, but the population explodes towards the end of spring. The lifestyle is very casual and friendly, with Ocean Beach as the main destination for tourists and day trippers. Year-round residents can find schools, churches, shops and even a school bus service to Long Island via an off-road modified school bus.
The quiet villages on Fire Island provide solitude, while the larger towns like Ocean Beach and Cherry Grove provide a more social atmosphere with clubs, bars and open air dining. Two of these hamlets, Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove, are popular destinations for LGBT vacationers.
The incorporated villages of Ocean Beach and Saltaire within Fire Island National Seashore are car-free during the summer tourist season (Memorial Day through Labor Day) and permit only pedestrian and bicycle traffic (during certain hours only in Ocean Beach). For off-season use, there are a limited number of driving permits for year-round residents and contractors. The hamlet of Davis Park allows no vehicles or bicycles year-round. Fire Island also contains a number of unincorporated villages (hamlets).
Beach erosion, largely due to construction of jetties at the Moriches Inlet, opened naturally by a storm in 1931 and widened September 21, 1938, is described in a report on the geological effects of the Hurricane of 1938.
Read more about this topic: Fire Island
Famous quotes containing the word inhabitants:
“The inhabitants of Canada appeared to be suffering between two fires,—the soldiery and the priesthood.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do you know what Agelisas said, when he was asked why the great city of Lacedomonie was not girded with walls? Because, pointing out the inhabitants and citizens of the city, so expert in military discipline and so strong and well armed: “Here,” he said, “are the walls of the city,” meaning that there is no wall but of bones, and that towns and cities can have no more secure nor stronger wall than the virtue of their citizens and inhabitants.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)