Hyde Park Drive-In
4114 Albany Post Road,
Hyde Park,
NY
12538
4114 Albany Post Road,
Hyde Park,
NY
12538
13 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Liggett-Florin Booking Service
Previous Names: Hyde Park Auto-Vision Theatre
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Aug 4, 2011 — Storied history of Hyde Park theatres
Opened on July 28, 1950 as the Hyde Park Auto-Vision Theatre with Joan Fontaine in “You Gotta Stay Happy” & Ann Blythe in “Red Canyon”. Later renamed Hyde Park Drive-In, it has been a local haunt for decades and, at $6 per person, the drive-in is a cheap alternative to the local multiplex.
In 2000, the theatre was sold to Scenic Hudson Inc., a Poughkeepsie-based environmental group. While the previous owner is still running the drive-in, no one knows what will happen to the Hyde Park Drive-In.
Many local residents were concerned that the Hyde Park Drive-In may close after the summer of 2001. So far, the current owners have refused comment on their plans and movies continue.
Sadly, the Hyde Park Drive-In was closed in June 2023 as the National Park Services are looking for new operators.
Contributed by
Ross Melnick
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
The Hyde Park Drive-In and the Overlook Drive-In have both converted to Barco digital projection.
Yeah thanks Chris1982. Now someone needs to reopen the Fair Oaks it already has the digital projection.
Apparently Scenic Hudson did not want a Wal-Mart or something along those lines going in across the street from the FDR homestead, so they bought the land under the DI and leased it back to the owners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/14driveinct.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=drive%20in&st=cse&oref=slogin
The Observer of Red Hook printed a nice history of the Hyde Park in Sept. 2014. It included a copy of the July 28, 1950 Grand Opening ad for the Hyde Park Auto Vision Theatre. The article said it was opened by Sidney Cohen and has been in the family ever since.
The Poughkeepsie Journal’s history (printed Aug. 3, 2011) added that Cohen’s brother-in-law Phil Eisenberg also helped establish the drive-in. “In 1977, we won county rights to show ‘Star Wars’ and it became one our biggest successes,” Fred Cohen recalled. “We ran it for 32 weeks and it grossed as much the first week it showed than we made our entire first year in business.”
The 1952-56 Theatre Catalogs listed it as the Auto-Vision, owners P. Eisenberg and S. F. Cohen.
Its listing in the 1951-52 International Motion Picture Almanac called it the “Hyde Park Auto Vision”, capacity 480, owners P. Eisenberg and S. F. Cohen. It stayed that way through the 1966 edition. The IMPA changed the listing to just “Hyde Park” by the 1969 edition. The 1978-88 IMPAs listed only S. F. Cohen as the owner.
Opened on 28/7/1950 with “You gotta stay happy” and “Red canyon”.
Also known as Hyde Park Auto Vision.
I remember going to see Airplane here with a friend’s family and it rained like hell. We missed about two thirds of the jokes. I also wanted to see Alien 3 so badly that when it was sold out at the Roosevelt that I went here instead. That film was so dark I could hardly see it.
Although the Hyde Park hasn’t reopened yet for the 2023 season, and its previous operators seem to be out of the picture, its owner says the drive-in is not closed for good. That’s the essence of a story that ran today (behind a paywall) at the Daily Freeman of Kingston NY.
The National Park Service, which bought the site in 2011, had a lease with the drive-in’s operators through last year. This year, the NPS requested proposals to operate the Hyde Park. They’ve received several such proposals, though none from the folks who used to run the drive-in.
“John Harlan Warren, a spokesman for the National Park Service Region 1, … declined to say whether there was a timeline for making a decision” about who the NPS would choose to operate the Hyde Park.
I do hope this drive in opens
The drive-in definitely needs some fixing up. The screen as you drive by you can see is in need of a repaint for sure. Don’t know if the structure in the back of the screen needs fixing also. Whoever takes it over again will have to get a new projector Set up. Also things for the concession stand. Lots of money to invest to open it up again. The former operators took all the electronic equipment