Compton Drive-In

The Compton Drive in is now gone. 65 beautiful home are now locaed on the back ¾ of the lot. I am one of the lucky new homeowners. The entire property was bought by a local church which held on to it for several years. The back ¾ lot was sold to Lennar Homes for development and the 65 homes built opened up begining in August 2005, with the last phase to be completed in Summer, 2006. The front ¼ lot is still owned by this local church which plans to develop it as their new church site/community center in Fall, 2006.

My parents lived in Lynwood about a mile away from the Compton Drive-in back in the early 70’s. One of my first childhood memories was driving with my parents on Rosecrans Ave. and seeing this amazing screen tower with Viking ships painted on it. I use to wonder what was behind the glass windows at the base of the screen tower. Just like everything else in life, I assumed it would be there forever and never returned after we moved from the area in 1977. I drove by in May of 2005 and saw that several houses were being built on the former site of the drive-in. I found a great picture of the screen tower in a book titled “Southern Californialand” by Charles Phoenix. Check it out and enjoy, they just don’t make them like that anymore.

I was never fond of the Compton Drive-in, even in the relatively peaceful latter part of the 1960s. They had a penchant for showing what was considered more “adult” fair—-meaning movies with the now long-defunct “M” rating. The last films I recall seeing there were “The Illustrated Man” and “The Oblong Box,” both of which kept me awake at night for weeks afterward. I was always fond of the Vikings depicted on the screen tower and the cute little Pacific Theaters office out front, though. I have photos of it from shortly before the demolishing, sadly showing how faded the paint had become and the vandalism (a large, ugly stain or two across the artwork). In its day, the screen tower was one of only 2 tall edifices in the city of Compton, long before the 12 story courthouse was built a few miles away. The Compton could easily be seen all the way from the 91 Fwy; it was missing it from that vista one day that signaled to me that yet another classic screen had bitten the dust.

The architect of the Compton Drive-In was William Glenn Balch.