Colonial Drive-in
400 Elliot Road,
Pleasant Hills,
PA
15025
400 Elliot Road,
Pleasant Hills,
PA
15025
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Last season: 1987
According to the marquee shown above, the Colonial was open AFTER 1985. The films listed were released in 1987 and 1986 respectively.
Please update.
July 2017 Google Street view shows that the box office is STILL standing, but it really isn’t in very good shape.
For all of those interested, as of 10/13 the box office is still standing. A little more weathered than in the above pic but miraculously still there. It’s only a matter of time before it’s gone.
Ed, great story on the Colonial Drive in. I guess one good thing about being in the military was you got to visit so many drive-ins from Augusta to up North. I really did not have a lot of memories of our Drive-ins Here, I remember going shopping at the new shoppping center built on the old Bon-Air Drive in.While my Mom Shopped i went straight to the Forest Hills and stood on that big hill watching.
I don’t know why but it always seemed like movies like BARAELLA or MidNIGHT COWBOY was playing. And often I got to watch a good bit.They Could have bben playing THAT DARN CAT and i would have been happy!
Thanks for those, Denny. Miss the marquees, if not the spelling on the Colonial’s.
Want to see the marquees from the Colonial Drive-In as well as its northern neighbor South Hills Drive-In?
View link
WOW! I never thought I would ever see these again! Eventually, somebody out there has a photo of their southern neighbor, the Echo Drive-In. TWO THUMBS-UP-SKIS to the owner of these photos for keeping these drive-ins alive in spirit.
Renewing link.
Grand opening ad at View link
I drove by where I remember the Echo being today… there’s an assisted living center there now?
If you were driving down Elliot Road toward Route 51, you could see what was on the screen of the Colonial as you passed the entrance.
I swear, I have vague memories of being around there for something and seeing the big screen from a street and asking my mum what was up with that… but that was a long time ago. I’m curious. I’m going to have to check it out.
I once found my way to the Echo from the commercial vehicle road atop the hill but never could locate that road, nor the drive in beside it, again. Is the screen still in place? Is the lot still unoccupied?
Yes, I think you could see (fora while, at least when I was in around maybe in middle school) the back of the Echo from the housing plans up there.
The Colonial was on the opposite side of Route 51, about half a mile south of the South Hills Drive-In but not as far south as the Echo.
The Colonial’s screen finally was removed, after facing the empty lot for many years. The lot itself has grown over but is still unoccupied and still obviously a former outdoor theater.
Part of the box office remains at the entrance on Elliot Road. I was there less than a month ago glancing over the ruins.
No, the South Hills Drive-In became the Bowser Pontiac lot. The Echo was a mile or two south, on the same side of Route 51. The Echo sat atop a hill that was accessed by a narrow path that cut through a thickly treed hill. When the drive-in closed, the road became impenetrable because it was blocked by tree stumps, etc., at the bottom. I can no longer even spot the former entrance to that private road.
Was the Echo located where Bowser Pontiac is now? I barley remember, but I believe I saw one of the Superman movies there, and the Jungle Book. It was so exciting!!!
I have been to the Colonial Drive-in This year. There is nothing much left of the place. It is sad to see what is left of the place. Where the concision/ Booth was just rubble and foundation, the screen been torn down and just the metal is left. There is not much left to tell what once was there. The box office is still standing strip of what it once was. The land is for sale and I hope someone can buy it to put another drive-in there.
I have posted some pictures here.
http://www.drive-ins.com/detail/patcolo
Does anyone have any photos of what the place looked like when it was running or before the Concession stand building burned down?
The Colonial was one of the many drive-ins in the old Pittsburgh-based Associated Theatres circuit.
I was a teen in 1960, specifically the last weekend in April, when two recent foreign language films that had played in local art houses opened at seven Pittsburgh area drive-ins including the Colonial.
The German “The Devil Strikes at Night” (provacative in title only) was the co-feature to Louis Malle’s French “The Lovers,” which was one of the biggest art house films in some time. It was famous for a steamy scene involving Jeanne Moreau.
The large drive-in display ad said: “This is a picture that children will neither enjoy nor understand.” (The MPAA ratings system was not designed and implemented until November 1968. In 1960s movies were still simply being billed as “adults only.”
I was still young enough to have a parental curfew. A friend with wheels agreed to drive out to the Colonial. “The Devil Strikes at Night” came on first. Finally, at about 10:30 p.m., “The Lovers” came on.
I’ve never forgotten the tension that night of knowing there was no way I could make curfew and deciding “The Lovers” was worth the penalties … But also the anticipation of my first racy French sex scene, which was very tame by the standards that would prevail a few years later but still quite something for its day.
We left immediately after the big scene.
Since then I’ve seen hundreds of sex scenes, from porn to, uh, art, but the experience never again had that don’t-dare-blink excitement of seeing “The Lovers” at the Colonial.
Every now and then in the years after the Colonial closed, I drove along Route 51 and up Elliot Road, and got out of my car where the Colonial’s box office used to be. The screen was still up there for a few years. The property was shabbier each visit. Still, there was a pleasant buzz from having seen “The Lovers” there all those years ago.
This is an aerial photo of the Colonial taken May 26, 1967
View link
Photo from Penn Pilot http://www.pennpilot.psu.edu/learnHow.html
If I recall correctly, the marquee, adjacent to the Elliot Rd. turnoff on PA 51, was a reddish color with COLONIAL in vertical letters and a white curved arrow.
This was the first of the trio of drive-ins along the Pleasant Hills/Jefferson Hills stretch of PA 51, opening on May 26, 1950 (The Echo came five years later, followed four years later by the South Hills). Last night of operation (based on newspaper listings) was on September 6, 1987. The possibilty of bringing back the Colonial is no more since the land is now being dug up for new houses.
Actually, this one lasted through the summer of 1987 (barely). The property is still there – in fact, the ticket booth still stands. The concession stand burned a few years back and the screen is long gone, though.
Correction, The Colonial was not located on Rt. 51, but on Elliot Rd. The Marquee was located on Rt. 51, but on the opposite side of Elliot, with a huge arrow pointing to the road.