Photographer and photoblogger Elizabeth Weinberg headed out to Plumb Beach and Dead Horse Bay and puts up a whole lot of excellent photos about it. You should check out her post on Burnt Sienna here and her Dead Horse Bay flickr photoset, from whence the above photo comes, here. Meantime, here some background on Plumb Island, from prattcollaboratives.org, to which Ms. Weinberg’s flickr post directed us:

From 1891 to 1907 Plumb Island was occupied by a group of homesteaders who set up a series of shacks and tents that eventually developed into bars and inns. Because the island was outside the jurisdiction of New York City the Islanders sold tobacco and alcohol tax free. 1907 the US army was sent by the city to break up the party and evict the homesteaders. The land was then leased to the former judge Winfield Overton, who allowed the homesteaders to return shortly after his arrival. The judge quickly declared himself ruler of the island and began organizing boxing matches, which were also illegal in New York at the time. The US military was then called again to “depose the dictator ” they had unwittingly installed.

In the late 1930s Robert Moses evicted the last homesteaders, demolished all of the remaining structures and connected the island to the mainland by a strip of highway and a bridge now known as Exit 9B on the Belt Parkway, turning it into a run down rest stop. In recent years the islands parking lot has become a regular rendezvous for swingers and the surrounding woods have become a cruzing spot for gay men.

Excellent photos.