While sun and surf bathing is the predominant afternoon activity, the weekend action, fast and furious, goes on almost around the clock - discoing, partying, dining out, or just strolling. Everyone of the communities has its own unique social character.
The early 1960s was a period of great anxiety among Fire Island residents. State Parks Commissioner Robert Moses appeared on the verge of winning approval of his long dream of paving a parkway from one end of the island to the other. At the last moment Moses's plans were derailed but the threat of the same scheme reappearing at some future date prompted creation of the Fire Island National Seashore, encompassing all the territory from the boarders of the Robert Moses State Park in the west to those of the county's Smith Point Park in the east.
The Fire Island establishment is a cosmopolitan community of millionaires, writers, garment manufacturers, doctors, entertainers, psychiatrists, reactionaries, liberals, radicals, and of course, the rest of the establishment.
