Massapequa Drive-In
5550 W. Sunrise Highway,
Massapequa,
NY
11758
5550 W. Sunrise Highway,
Massapequa,
NY
11758
1 person
favorited this theater
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Opened on 19/6/1950. Closed in 1968. The site is now a shopping center(Circuit City)(now closed down), Toy store(Toys R Us)(now closed down), and Burlington Coat factory.
Never operated by Century just Prudential and UA.
Opening day was June 9, 1950.
Uploaded generic ad trying to get the South Shore people to go to the drive in.
Please update address to:
5550 West Sunrise Highway, Massapequa, NY 11758
A case of worth more dead than alive. It was not a particularly impressive drive in.
This article in Box Office shows why this drive-in land was sold. $1,000,000.
http://www.boxoffice.com/the_vault/issue_page?issue_id=1969-1-27&page_no=16#page_start
UPDATE ! I found filmed footage evidence of this drive in! The 1968 exploitation movie “Teenage Mother” was filmed here on Long Island by Jerry Gross (he’s the man that brought us movies like “I Drink Your Blood/ I Eat Your Skin”!). Anyway, Teenage Mother has a shot of the marquee (I think “…..apequa” can only be seen) as well as a short action scene takes place at the drive in at night. You can see off in the distance some twinkling lights that would possible be the scape of Sunrise Highway. Something Weird Video sells this for about $10.00 OR look for it on YouTube. Another scene has the star teenaged mother going home to her parent’s house—and the outside looks like a typical south shore Long Island home too!
To Bloop, there are some photos in the Sunrise Mall now that show the area. One is an overhead shot showing the drive in, Uncle Buck’s etc. They are hanging on the wall by the escalators on the south side. The second floor display has the photos that I am talking about, but there are also old Massapequa photos on the first floor. Don’t know how long these photos will be displayed
Here is a 1966 aerial.
As a teen, I worked in Lobel’s (children’s clothing store just down the hall from the theatres). Most memorable films seen there: Monty Python & the Holy Grail, and Young Frankenstein.
Ah, the pit…yes, I remember the junked cars and riding my bike off the steep slopes…later became the Sunrise Mall home of the worst theatres I’ve ever been in, the UA Movies. Black shoe boxes with tiny screens. I saw a few movies there in the mid 70s.
Hi Don,
Steve H. here. Yep, sounds like we were practically neighbors! 45 would have been up between Merle and McLeod? We were #25 – last house on the dead end. Remember biking thru the ‘pit’? Tons of old wrecked cars to play with! What were our parents thinking when they let us loose like that? Ah, different times.
OK, to keep this drive-in related, we took our kids to the Roosevelt Drive-in on Friday night for Kung-Fu Panda and Indiana Jones. We are striving to keep the remaining ones in our area open!
Howdy fellow Massapequan! I lived at 45 Westgate Road. At onetime there were 5 movie venues in Massapequa…the Bar Harbour Theatre, the Pequa Theatre, the Massapequa Drive-In, the North Massapequa Theatre, and the Sunrise Mall Theatres. Now…there are none. The nearby Amity Theatre, Big “A” Amityville Theatre and Johnny All-Weather Drive-in…all gone, as well.
Sorry guys, I haven’t dropped by here in a while!
I lived adjacent to the ‘Sunrise Mall’ site on Northgate Rd., having moved there in the summer of 1964. The 74 acres, which included the sand pit was property owned by the NY Water Board, IIRC, and supplied parts of Massapequa (Carmen Rd to Park Lane). The land was sold to the mall developers, and construction began in 1972. I was part of the first wave of teen hiring late in the summer of 1973. There are two or three pump stations in the mall parking lot, along with recharge basins (“sumps”) surrounding it. This site is North of the LIRR & Sunrise HW.
Now back to the South side of Sunrise: I started at Berner HS in Sept 1971, graduated in June 1975. There was a small foot bridge over the Carmen Creek (?) from the school land over to the back of the Whites property. I never walked the long way along Carmen Mill Rd – always cut around the Park-&-Shop bldg, around the old zoo, and the construction zone of the new Whites building (site of the Drive-in). So I still disagree with Don slightly on the timeline, but now we are only down to a 1 year or so discrepancy.
Just to get back on track on the topic of drive-in’s, I live in Dutchess County, NY. We still have two viable theatres, and I took my kids to see Prince Caspian and College Road Trip at the Overlook last weekend!
Oh my gosh! all this and no pictures!what a shame .
The Massapequa Drive-in was on Sunrise Highway, just east of Unqua Road, behind Berner High School. The Sunrise Mall was on the other side of Sunrise Highway.
Where on Sunrise Highway was this? Where the mall is now, on the north side of the tracks?
OK…the Massapequa Drive-in and Berner HS co-existed through my years at Berner (1969-1972).
Depending what year you are speaking about, (1960s) between White’s and the drive-in was the Massapequa Zoo & Kiddie Park and the Two Guys Store, along with Jay’s Appliances. White’s later became Sears and the Jerry Lewis Cinema opened in the shopping Center.
Before the Sunrise Mall, the area was a big sand pit and woods. I used to ride my bike through there.
Was Alfred G Berner HS up before the DriveIn was gone? Does anybody remember what was across the street from Whites and the DriveIn, where the Sunrise Mall is located now on the north side of Sunrise Hwy? I remember it under construction when I was about 10 years old, but can’t remmeber what was there before the mall. I can remember riding bicycles under the BarHarbour strip mall across from Masapequa High school in the 60’s riding through the underground truck tunnel, you guys are really “digging in the dirt” as Peter Gabriel would say ,…it’s great remembering, “Thanks for the memories!”
GTI2297
I have very fond memories of jumping the fence at the Massapequa Drive In and turning up the speakers in the last row. We would then jump back over and sit in White’s parking lot and watch the show. There were some trailers parked in the back, used for storage in sure, and we would sit by them. This was in the late 1960’s and it was a fun thing to do on a Friday night. About 1968 I had gotten a fake draft card that stated I was 18 so I would buy beer at that package store that was next to Whites. Warm beer and a free movie, what more could a guy ask for. jm
hey fibber2,
do you remember the rodeo that used to set up behind the old Whites building?
As I remember the new whites building had to have gone up before 1974. I believe it was built between 1971 and 1973. It was built on the site of the drive-in however Uncle Bucks zoo buildings are where the Luclille Roberts is today just east of Burton Lane Park. Where the McDonalds is was also part of Uncle Bucks. I also remember a liquor store taking part of the building that Uncle Bucks was in. That building burned.
I was a shopping ‘cart’ boy at Waldbaums supermarket in the late 70s . I worked there from ‘78 to early 1980. The Waldbaums was built at the same time the new Whites building went up so the first article is definately wrong with their timeline.
New here. I actually came to this site looking for information about the playground at the Rt 110 Drive-in to prove to my sister that it did indeed have a train! Having validated my memories, I figured the next place to look was the Massapequa site.
I remember the timeline a bit differently from what is posted (thru the late ‘70’s) in the header. My folks took me to Frank Bucks in the mid '60’s, but my mother couldn’t stand the smell of the monkey area, so we never went back! Out front on Sunrise was a big old wood frame building 'JA Rodes Park & Shop’, which burned down in the very late ‘60s or so. Just down the street was the original “Whites of Massapequa” building. Now here is where it gets a bit vague for me, but by the time I began walking to Berner HS in the Fall of 1971, they were well underway with construction on the new Whites building (late comers to the town would know this as the Sears building). Wasn’t this either partially or completely on the Bucks and Drive-in site? That would have made the demise of these establishments around 1970??
That one is not listed on Cinema Treasures yet.