Blue Hills Drive-In
320 Turnpike Street,
Canton,
MA
02021
320 Turnpike Street,
Canton,
MA
02021
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Opened in 1957, the Blue Hills Drive-In was located on state Route 138 in Canton which is called Washington Street on its north end; while the remainder is called Turnpike Street.
The drive-in was closed on August 12, 1984 with Steve Guttenberg in “Police Academy” & Tom Cruise in “Risky Business”.
Contributed by
Ron Salters
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Recent comments (view all 21 comments)
My post on June 9 of the Historic Aerials shot would explain a lot of what the are looked like back then…….. You ought to try it.
SiliconSam- when I looked at it briefly when it was first posted, I couldn’t seem to make sense of it. But now I can see that the place was in an obscure location. The only view of the screen would be from some industrial buildings to the south, probably not open at night. I can see now that this was the type of drive-in where the back of the screen is on the street by the entrance.
One thing not clear from the topo map or the aerial is whether people in cars driving northbound on 138 could see the screen.
In the aerial photo the screen is canted away from Route 138, but it appears that there would be some view, albeit at an angle, depending on intervening buildings and trees.
320 Turnpike St, Canton, MA 02021
The above address will map accurately to the location of the drive-in.
Here is a 1969 aerial photo of the drive-in, courtesy of HistoricAerials.com.
I worked at the Blue Hills Drive in from about 1974 when I was 16 until about 1980 when I graduated from college. I worked on the concession stand and worked my way up to Assistant Manager…..Jim Froio was the Concession stand manager and he was a great guy. We had a great crew, and working there was fantastic….I still keep up with many of my coworkers via Facebook and we have reunion get togethers about every decade or so! (at the Town Spa Pizza since this is where we went out after work most times)
BTW: Here is the obituary for Jim Froio…concession manager when I worked at the Blue Hills Drive-in. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8410020.html
It was a great place from the late 50’s to the early 80’s. I saw a Cival War flick there in the early 60’s with my parents and grandparents in our 58 Rambler. I saw Flipper with my friends and we were usually running around in the fields off the side of the parking lot where my best friend fell and cut his knee open on a broken bottle, cutting the night short. I was there at least once a week through the 70’s with my buddies drinking and smoking pot which we did in those days. Every car was partying or necking or both. In the 60’s it was a great place for families with a playground down front. In the 70’s it’s where you brought your first girl or as I said, party with your friends. It had a great concession stand and of course no radio tunable sound just the old speakers hanging on the pole next to your car. One night we drove out with two speakers still in the rear windows. They were rolled up tight so the glass didn’t beak, just the snapping of two safety wire ropes that were in the speaker cable to prevent theft. It was a great place from an era long since past, and how I miss it so.
There was a feature story on local drive-ins in the Quincy Patriot Ledger, Sat. July 18, written by Fred Hanson. He says that the Blue Hills DI opened 1959, closed 1983, now site of an office park. He mentions mosquito problems there, and also an unruly crowd at Led Zeppelin/ “Song Remains the Same”.
Actually, the Blue Hills Drive-In opened in mid-1957 according to a few articles from the Boston Globe. Also, a 1957 aerial view also shows the theater under construction, meaning that the Blue Hills Drive-In opened that same year.
The Blue Hills Drive-In closed for the final time on August 12, 1984 with “Police Academy” and “Risky Business” as its last films.