Greenville Drive-In
10700 Route 32,
Greenville,
NY
12083
10700 Route 32,
Greenville,
NY
12083
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Opened on 18/6/1959 with “Quantrill’s raiders” and “The remarkable Mr Pennypacker”. 500 cars.
From the old GreenvilleDriveIn.net About Us page in 2014, now stored at the Internet Archive:
In April 1959, Peter Carelas owner of Carelas Restaurant and Grill, began construction on The Greenville Drive-in. The theatre was originally designed to hold 400 cars, was fitted with the latest in projection and sound equipment and was one of 6200 theatres across the country. (The capacity was 550 in the International Motion Picture Almanac.)
… Our screen measures 85 feet wide and stands 5 stories tall which gives everyone a great view of the action. The Drive-in thrived through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s …
In 1988, local business owner Mark Wilcox and 10 others formed what is now known as the Greenville 11. … The Greenville 11 jointly purchased the Drive-in and saved it from land development.
Mark Wilcox operated and managed the Drive-in through the 2006 season. During Mark’s time in operations, the drive in saw the switch from wired speakers to FM sound …
2007 was a year of sadness, after 38 consecutive seasons the Greenville Drive-in closed. In 2009, Don Brown and Patricia Creigh reopened the Drive-in for the season. Due to an extreme amount of rainy days and nights, the Drive-in was only open a few weekends. The Drive-in was again closed for the 2010 and 2011 seasons.
In 2012, Jim Gatehouse and Family took over the operations of the Greenville Drive-in. … The Drive-in stands today (2014) 1 of only 400 left in the country.
Sounds like maybe that 1988 crisis was when Ed Caro left. As mentioned above, the Greenville was closed all of 2014.
Current owners Leigh Van Swall and Dwight Grimm ran a modest but successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015. Grimm told Catskill Eats, “We’re trying not to be so much a straight-up movie theater, but more of an event venue with movie-showing capabilities.” They finished their 2017 season in mid-October.
One of the owners of the Malta Drive-In, Ed Caro, managed the Greenville before buying the Malta in 1988.
This should be listed as open not closed.
The Greenville Drive-In has been under new management since April 2015. The digital conversion was completed in June and was open to the public every week from July 4th 2015 til last week in October. It will re-open (along with its new biergarten) first weekend of May 2016. It is very much open.
The current owners are trying to raise funds to convert to digital projection so they can open for the 2015 season. They were closed in 2014 sadly
This drive-in did not reopen in 2014, and should be listed as closed.