Super Castle Drive-In
Franklin Avenue,
New Castle,
PA
16101
Franklin Avenue,
New Castle,
PA
16101
1 person
favorited this theater
The Super Castle Drive-In was operating prior to 1950. It was a single screen drive-in just outside of New Castle PA in Union. It was interesting, because the screen was done up like a castle, and had big turrets on each end. If anyone can find a photo of the drive in, It would be great.
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orangebug
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Recent comments (view all 11 comments)
The Super Castle Drive-In is listed in the 1975 IMPA with a capacity for 800 cars. It is not listed in the 1980 edition. Drive-Ins.com gives the location as Franklin Avenue and claims that a Wal-Mart now stands where this drive-in was located.
Sam if that is where the drive-in once stood it far from Franklin which is all the way at the other side of town. The Wal-Mart Supercentet is located at 2501 W. State St. which again is far from Franklin Ave.
establish/renew link
Here is a June 1955 ad from the New Castle News:
http://tinyurl.com/yl5avpy
The ad just posted pretty much confirms the location I pointed out on 8/24/09. 3 Miles West of New Castle on Hwy 224. There is a Wal-Mart SuperCenter a few blocks away, but not at the old drive-in property.
I would say the Franklin address is incorrect.
Guess I need to retract parts of my comments. Looking at 1993 imagery on Google Earth, there was a larger drive-in on the SW corner of 224 and 60, East of Winter Rd. Less than ½ mile apart from the other drive-in. Yes, a Wal-Mart occupies the site.
It was owned in 1956 by Co-Op which ran a lot of drive-ins in that state.
O.K.
The Super Castle was certainly the nicer of the two area drive-ins. It had a larger field, a large concession stand and very large block and concrete screen tower. Screens “wings†were added for cinemascope in the mid-50’s. By the 60’s the Super Castle was running first-run product with the Penn Theatre, downtown. Often the filmco’s would allocate a single print for the town. Ushers would take one reel (20 minutes) from the Penn projection booth and swap it for a reel at the drive-in. The two theatres were more than 5 miles apart. Timing was very important and too many red lights or a train would result in a dark screen until the usher could make it back to one theatre or another. This “bicycling prints†program continued until a train hit an usher’s car, hurting him and destroying his car. After that there were always enough prints available and nobody had to share.
PLEASE UPDATE ADDRESS TO 2501 W. State St.