Digital Transgender Archive

Guide to the Matthew Charles Rosenblum Papers

The digital images consist of Cherry Grove celebrities and royalty at various functions, including teas, beauty contests, and the annual Invasion of the Pines. The images are crafted using the digital equivalents of photography, stage makeup, and cosmetic surgery.

Matthew Charles Rosenblum was born on June 7, 1947, in New Jersey. His interest in photography began when he was eight years old, and by age 16 he amassed an extensive collection of United States national parks images. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1970, and then earned an advanced degree in psychology from the New School for Social Research. Between 1974 and 1977, he took month-long photographic explorations in the Andes and Amazonas and Southeast Asia. In 1978, he met John Piazza, and for the next twenty-two years they traveled extensively in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia where Rosenblum captured expressions of culture and lifestyle in his portraits of the locals. Beginning in 2000, they became seasonal residents of Cherry Grove on Fire Island, New York, where they started to go by the name of The Hoffas. The name originated from Rosenblum's adoption of Gimmi Hoffa as his nom-de-caméra and the local lore that Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster leader, was in a federal witness protection program and living in Cherry Grove. Rosenblum's photographs are exhibited in homes and business establishments in Cherry Grove. In 2005 he joined the Board of the Arts Project of Cherry Grove.