Southington Drive-In
Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike,
Southington,
CT
06479
Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike,
Southington,
CT
06479
4 people
favorited this theater
Your typical drive-in of the 1950’s, this actually opened in 1954. Featured in-car heaters that made the drive-in loads of fun in the winter. The Southington Drive-In had a wonderful neon/flashing light roadside sign which, unfortunately, was downsized to about half its original design sometime in the late-1970’s. Later, a second screen was added, which wasn’t such a bad thing and actually made for better use of the property.
The theater went dark in 2002, one of the last remaining drive-ins in CT. It was reopened on June 26, 2010, as a single screen.
Contributed by
Bob Whitworth
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Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
This place was owned by the same family that owned the Elm Theater in West Hartford. I worked at this drive-in occasionally as their relief projectionist.
It took a helluva bright bulb to get through that night air and onto the screen clearly! We’d broadcast sound in AM stereo since most of the window-hanging speakers had died. The gals in the concession stand would always bring me a bucket of french fries when they knew I was working. (Good to have friends in the right places, eh?) On weekend nights we’d have to contend with the baseball field directly behind the place since they had tons of lighting for night games. It would wreak havoc with our screens and we battled constantly.
Still, this place was virtually a license to print cash on a Friday or Saturday nights in the summer. We’d have to turn away cars because the place was filled for every show. How many theaters can say that?
See a 1955 newspaper ad for the Southington Drive-In with its “giant curved Cinemascope screen” at View link
Here is a recent photo.
I was there a couple of week ago and took these photos (one of which, Lost Memory already linked you to above):
View link
and
View link
Car capacity in 1975 was 1,100.
I have a short video of this drive -in…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Veh9YAFWT6Y
Shot around 1991.
This drive-in will reopen on June 26, 2010 as a single screen venue run by the town. Capacity will be 300 cars and it will show movies on Saturday nights through the summer.
View link
View link
New website http://www.southingtondrive-in.org/
March 24 1970 and “BOB,CAROL,TED,ALICE” is playing along with a second feature called “THE MAD ROOM” in car heaters!