Watertown Drive-In
Frost Bridge Road and James H. Darcey Memorial Highway,
Watertown,
CT
06787
Frost Bridge Road and James H. Darcey Memorial Highway,
Watertown,
CT
06787
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The Watertown Drive-In was opened June 30, 1955 with Fred Astaire in “Daddy Long Legs” & Richard Basehart in “Canyon Crossing”. It was short lived as it was flooded on August 18, 1955, destroying everything except the screen. It reopened July 1, 1956. Owned by LaFlamme. In 2002, the concession stand was torn down. Both screens were torn down in July of 2004.
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Dave Bonan
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Should be listed as demolished.
The single screen drive in often played first run pictures in tandem with a downtown Waterbury theatre. This was also owned by the Sirica family I believe. At some point the LaFlamme family purchased it and did very well with the business.
In the 1970’s it showed porn causing disturbances on nearby Route 8. The two additional screens were added in the seventies and the drive in played, well, “drive-in” type movies. B- movies, slasher films, Stewardess soft porn things. The land became too valuable, the theatre closed and the property was sold.Too bad because it was a great place.
The Watertown Drive-In may have opened in 1956 or 1957 because there is an April 1957 Watertown Drive-In ad in the Waterbury Republican proclaiming that it was “New England’s Newest and Finest” that can be seen at View link
Status should be closed/demolished. There are some photos of the ruins here:
http://tinyurl.com/ycpdxda
James H Darcey Memorial Hwy & Frost Bridge Rd, Watertown, CT 06795
The above address will map accurately to the location of the drive-in, which is visible on Google Earth using present day imagery.
According to the 2010 aerial imagery, the property is currently undeveloped.
According to an excellent timeline posted on Flickr along with the Grand Opening newspaper ad:
The Watertown opened June 30, 1955, but a flood on Aug. 18 destroyed everything but the screen. It rebuilt and reopened July 1, 1956.
The original owners, Fred Sirica and John Quatrano, sold the Watertown to Jade Theaters in 1973. The LaFlamme family bought it in 1976 and ran it until it closed in 1984. They had added two smaller screens in 1979.
The concession stand was torn down in 2002, and the screens followed in 2004. As of 2006, the State of Connecticut owned the property.
There are many more details in Charlie Crowell’s timeline, so you really should go read it. I’ll close with the last two sentences of that post:
With the exception of a 1965 aerial view, there are no known photographs of the drive-in during its years of operation.
(More information can be found at the “Florence T Crowell Historic Watertown Connecticut Photo Gallery”, only on Facebook.)
I saw many movies there in the 70s and 80s. And if you were going North on route 8,you could see the screen. I heard they played adult movies there too,but I was little so never checked it out.lol
Property has unfortunately been 100% repurposed