Dec. 7: Riverside Drive In Theatre, Vandergrift PA

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It’s Day 341 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. My drive got just a little longer but was only about 45 minutes from the Palace Gardens Drive In Theater in Indiana PA. Riverside Drive In Theatre in Vandergrift PA.

The Riverside, as promised, sits just across the highway from the Kiskiminetas River. It opened as the Woodland and was advertising by 1949. The 1952 Theatre Catalog listed it as Lee’s Woodland, owned by Harold Lee. In 1978, the drive-in closed.

In 1995, Jim Lipuma bought and refurbished the drive-in, renaming it the Galaxy. ”The drive-in has always been a love of mine,” he told The New York Times in 1997, adding that business had been better than expected. “Not a night goes by when someone doesn’t thank me for reopening the drive-in.”

Lipuma moved the Brookville, purchased the Moonlite and reopened it in May 1997. That may have been why he chose not to renew his lease with the Galaxy after the 2004 season. Todd Ament took over and reopened the drive-in in July 2005 as the Riverside to avoid entanglements with the Galaxy’s previous business dealings.

When the Pittsburgh City Paper talked with Ament in 2006, he said the name change was more important than he’d thought. “People think the Galaxy is gone,” he said, “and don’t know that the drive-in has re-opened. … It’s hard to advertise when you’re on a budget. You rely on word of mouth, and the Internet.”

The public radio program Marketplace talked with Ament in 2013 about the switch to digital projection. You can hear that report, and when he sounds like on the phone, below:

The Riverside’s main claim to fame these days is its twice-yearly dusk-to-dawn Monsterama celebrations of horror movies. The embedded YouTube video of the day shows the first few minutes of one of those shows. There’s another report of what it’s like here.

The drive-in had closed for the season in mid-October this year. I’m glad it will be back in the spring.

Miles Today / Total: 31 / 38814 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 199

Nearby Restaurant: I love the little comfort-food diner-style restaurants to refresh my soul after coming to another drive-in that’s closed for the season. The G & G Restaurant had all that. In this case, the cranberry walnut chicken salad for lunch gave me a nice mix of flavors and nutrition so I could feel smug while adding a slice of autumn cake with pumpkin, banana, and carrot. Great stuff!

Where I Virtually Stayed: I couldn’t find any hotels really close to the Riverside, so I had to head west to Tarentum where there’s a SpringHill Suites. This is one of those places where I could stay a week, with a kitchenette in my room. Wifi was solid. Breakfast had eggs and fruit and the continental regulars. It’s all good.

Only in Vandergrift: Just a few miles west in Tarentum, there’s the Tour-Ed Coal Mine and Museum, where visitors can experience what it was like to be a coal miner in the 1850s. There’s also an above-ground strip mine, a mine rescue vehicle, and a 1785 log house.

Next stop: Starlight Drive-In, Butler PA .

Dec. 6: Palace Gardens Drive In Theater, Indiana PA

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It’s Day 340 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Once again my drive took just a little over a half hour, from the Carrolltown Hi-Way Drive In just north of Carrolltown PA to the Palace Gardens Drive In Theater in Indiana PA.

The Palace Gardens opened on June 22, 1950. According to a 1984 article in the Indiana Gazette, Helen Kerzan conceptualized and named the drive-in, then her husband John, a structural steel welder, built the screen and speaker stands. Their children worked there from the beginning, and daughter Dorothy Kerzan managed the Palace Gardens from 1980 through the 1994 season.

For a couple of years in the mid-1950s, the Palace Gardens and some other theaters in the region ran into trouble when a prosecutor decided to begin enforcing an old state “Blue Law” against showing movies on Sundays unless local voters opted in. White Township voters finally passed that exemption in November 1957.

In March 1995, Dorothy Kerzan announced that the drive-in would not open that year after being “plagued by health problems” according to a contemporary account in the Gazette. “It’s sad after 45 years,” said Helen Kerzan, who was 87 and still lived next door, “but there comes a time when the years have piled up and you’re not able to go.”

Dorothy’s daughter Clarine Beatty, described at the time as “graduating from Penn State and getting married”, returned to Indiana, assumed ownership and reopened the Palace Gardens. As of 2016, she was still the owner. In 2010, she told the Gazette, “There was a guy who walked in here (the concession stand) last weekend and he said, ‘Wow, this looks exactly the same as how I remembered it.’ I said, ‘That’s because it is,’ It hasn’t changed. It’s pretty much identical. The last remodeling was done in the ’70s.”

Beatty’s husband, Mike Hudzick, was the projector and general maintenance guy. “It was Clarine’s goal to carry it on, so that’s how I got ‘suckered’ into this 15 years ago,” he said. “I’m just happy she wanted to continue it, because we enjoy it. It’s fun to see the smiling kids’ faces.”

Those kids were sad for awhile in 2016 when the Palace Gardens delayed its season opener until its owners could “find a digital projection option that works for us.” Just before Memorial Day, Beatty located one that had been used in a theater in England. After plenty of work to prepare the projection room, the drive-in reopened by early August.

The drive-in had closed for the season after Labor Day weekend this year. I’m glad it will be back in the spring.

Miles Today / Total: 29 / 38783 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 199

Nearby Restaurant: One of the relatively neglected cuisine on my odyssey has been the deli, which is why I had lunch at the 9th Street Deli just a couple of doors down from the Jimmy Stewart Museum (see below). Sometimes all I really need on a sunny, cold day is a hot cup of French onion soup and a loaded submarine sandwich.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Just to prove that I’m not a slave to Hampton Inn, I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn instead. Just like a Hampton, there were cookies and coffee waiting at check-in at the HGI. Just like a Hampton, my clean, comfortable room had all the modern amenities. But the HGI’s breakfast buffet is a notch above Hampton’s yet just as free for Hilton Gold members like me. Woohoo!

Only in Indiana (PA): Indiana, the Pennsylvania borough, was were noted actor Jimmy Stewart was born and raised. According to Roadside America, Indiana honored him with a life-size statue on his 75th birthday, but when Stewart dedicated it, the bronze statue wasn’t ready. They substituted a statue made of fiberglass, and when the bronze was ready, the early statue was moved to the Jimmy Stewart Museum.

Next stop: Riverside Drive In Theatre, Vandergrift PA.

Dec. 5: Carrolltown Hi-Way Drive In, Carrolltown PA

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Hi-Way Drive-In marquee lit at night

Photo from the Hi-Way Drive-In Facebook page

It’s Day 339 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took just a little over a half hour to drive from The Bar-Ann Drive-In in Portage PA to the Carrolltown Hi-Way Drive In just north of Carrolltown PA. As you’ll see, I’m not the only one to make that commute.

My information about the Hi-Way’s history is sketchy at best. Cinema Treasures says it opened in 1951. The 1952 Theatre Catalog listed it with owners Thomas Woods and John M. Ridilla.

That’s the same John Ridilla from Latrobe PA who opened a Hi-Way Drive-In in his home town in 1950. Along with some real estate business partners, he incorporated Hi-Way Theaters, Inc. in Florida in early 1951. I wonder what other Hi-Way drive-ins are Ridilla creations. At any rate, the Motion Picture Almanac listed him as the Carrolltown drive-in’s owner through at least its 1966 edition.

After a short absence from the MPA list, the Hi-Way resurfaced in 1980 as owned by Cinemette. Movie-Theatre.org (pdf) says Cinemette owned the Hi-Way in 1975-80. By the 1984 MPA, the owner was listed as R. Glaus. I wonder if that was the young Rick Glaus, the guy who was running the Dependable in Moon PA at the time.

Donald Gawel owns the Hi-Way now along with the Bar-Ann, so he’s sure to have driven the same path I took this day. According to the 2007 obituary for Diane M. Radwanski Gawel, his late wife, she was “Co-owner of Hi-Way Drive In Theater in Carrolltown and the Bar-Ann Drive In Theater in Portage and previous operator of the Silver Drive In Theater in Johnstown for 12 years.”

Another clue to how long Gawel has owned the Hi-Way comes from a July 2013 article in The Trib-Dem about the switch from film to digital projection. “The Hi-Way Drive-In has been slotting 35mm film reels since 1984, when owners Don and Judy Gawel first got into the cinema business,” it said.

Don told The Trib-Dem that business was good and that he was looking forward to the new capabilities of the new equipment. “You either go with the new era of technology or you go out of business,” he said. “I chose to stay in it.”

The drive-in had closed for the season after the last weekend in October this year. I’m glad it will be back in the spring.

Miles Today / Total: 22 / 38754 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 199

Nearby Restaurant: It’s yet another regional restaurant chain that I hadn’t previously visited, and this one is masquerading as a convenience store. Sheetz has gasoline and smokes, but it also offers “Made To Order” food. I picked up a platter with homestyle chicken and fish plus some onion rings and mac and cheese bites. Then I brought it down to my hotel room for a feast alone.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Google said the closest hotel to the Hi-Way is the Quality Inn in Edensburg about 12 miles south. As Quality Inns go, this was a good one. My comfortable room had all the modern amenities, and breakfast with eggs and waffles gave me everything I needed. If only it were closer to the drive-in.

Only in Carrolltown: There’s a neat old abandoned railroad tunnel near Carrolltown. You can see its wooden supports in this YouTube video and read more about it on the Stuff Thats Gone Facebook page.

Next stop: Palace Gardens Drive In Theater, Indiana PA.