Shirley Drive-In

It was such a disappointment to me when the Shirley Drive-In closed. I spent many nights there as a kid with my family and later as a teenager/young adult. The whole vibe – watching movies outdoors, hitting the playground before and between shows, the highly questionable hot dogs at the concession, the old metal speakers hanging from your driver-side window – harkened back to a simpler time and is gone from today’s movie experience.

In response to Bway’s post, the concession stand was located approximately in the middle of the property, which would put it in the center of the South Port parking lot, facing Waldbaums with Blockbuster to the right and FYE (or whatever the music store is now) to the left. The building that housed the concession stand also served as the projection booth. The playground was directly behind it.

The drive-in was fenced in on 3 sides – left, right, and behind the screen. Beyond the fence on the right were paths that led thru the woods (which could be accessed by going behind what is now the tire place to the right of the Southport entrance) and ended on a dirt hill that had an excellent view of the screen. You could even hear the movies from all the speakers hanging on their posts and open car windows. This perk serviced many penniless teenage nights for my friends and I.

Too bad all the good stuff seems to always fade away …

To answer your question OX, here’s a link to a great site with tons of info about the Mastic-Shirley area and excellent photos of the drive-in back in the day. Seems that it was some kind of horse ranch in the 40s-50s!

View link

This is a photo of the Shirley Drive-In. Date given for photo is circa 1954.

This site has some information. Timeline given is July 1, 1963 to 1988.

It parked 800 cars and in the Late Fifties it was a Associated Prudential theatre.