Gage Drive-In
6801 Gage Avenue,
Bell Gardens,
CA
90201
6801 Gage Avenue,
Bell Gardens,
CA
90201
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The Gage Drive-In opened in April of 1949 and closed in the mid-1970’s. It had a capacity for 900 cars.
Contributed by
Lost Memory
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From socaldriveins.com:
View link
Here is the Pacific lineup in 1954, including the Gage:
http://tinyurl.com/2uzlp6
Was mentioned in the documentary “Drive-In Movie Memories” in 2001.
This is from Boxoffice magazine in March 1949:
HUNTINGTON PARK, CA-The 1,000-car Gage Avenue Drive-In now being built here by Pacific Theaters is expected to be completed early in April. Occupying a 15-acre site, the new open air theater is being erected at a cost of $400,000.
The front of the drive-in will be featured by a large mural of a stagecoach drawn by four horses in front of a picturesque mountain background. A seven-story screen tower is being fabricated of structural steel. Another convenience will be a 100-foot concession bar.
Here is the mural mentioned above:
http://tinyurl.com/n4gv8v
My favorite website. LOL
Boxoffice of July 31, 1948, said that C.H. and William Glenn Balch were preparing plans for a drive-in at Bell Gardens for Pacific Drive-Ins.
As the firm of Balch & Balch had been dissolved a few years earlier, and William Glenn Balch had formed a partnership with Louis L. Bryan in 1946, I’m not sure if the inclusion of Clifford Balch in the notice was not just an error by somebody at Boxoffice who didn’t know about the elder Balch’s retirement.
In any case, William Balch had already designed other drive-ins and was almost certainly the lead architect on the Bell Gardens project. Balch & Bryan had several drive-in projects underway in 1948.
Here is a 1972 aerial photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yche3lm
The aerial given on Drive-Ins.com if a much clearer view.
http://www.drive-ins.com/pictures/catgage004.jpg
Now a housing development tract, the outline of which is fairly close to the boundaries of the old drive-in.