Dunkirk Drive-In
Tenney Street and S. Roberts Road,
Dunkirk,
NY
14048
Tenney Street and S. Roberts Road,
Dunkirk,
NY
14048
2 people
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The Drive-In Theatre of Dunkirk, NY advertised itself as ‘New’ in the Tuesday, August 19, 1942 issue of the Dunkirk Evening Observer. Its movie that night, offered for the “last time today”, was “Now Or Never” starring Richard Talmadge.
Unlike its indoor brethren, the drive-in rarely advertised in the Evening Observer. Its movie listings were included in notes a few times in September 1942.
The drive-in’s advertisements indicated that it was at the corner of Roberts Road & Tenney Street. The last mention I could find in the Evening Observer was September 15, 1942.
Then The Exhibitor magazine’s Sept. 16, 1942 issue gave the matter three words: Dunkirk Drive-In closed. The Chautauqua Drive-In & Van Buren Drive-In would arrive later in the decade in different parts of the region, but that appears to have been all for the original Dunkirk Drive-In.
Contributed by
Michael Kilgore
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
it appears that the outline although faint still remains after being closed for 70 years.
After looking at a 1953 aerial, which was taken 11 years after the drive-in closed, I see no evidence at all that it existed around that intersection.
That doesn’t mean it never existed there, it just means that it could have been built over with housing or completely demolished and left as an open field.
If dansdriveintheater says that a faint outline exists, then a link to a Google map should be sufficient to see the right location.
One would need to know what corner the place was on. To the NE there are trees, and one can’t really see the outline of anything. To the SE is an old industrial dump site. (Roblin Steel.) To the NW is a neighborhood park that has been owned by the city since 1940. To the SW is housing. Other than the city property, none of the ownership records go back before 1950, so that avenue is a dead end.
I still see nothing in the 1953 aerial that suggests a drive-in of any recognizable shape or features existed at that intersection.
Either it was built over or it was completely razed. The latter doesn’t make much sense to raze property and leave it undeveloped. But I’ve seen stranger things.