Category Archives: Illinois

Is this MO venue a drive-in?

Posted on by
Reply
This looks like it could be fun, but is it a drive-in? Photo from the Lakeside Ashland Facebook page

I’ve found a place that dances on the edge of being a drive-in theater. That bugs me. See what you think.

It all started with listicle buried under another story, all published by a Quincy IL radio station. It’s a surprisingly accurate list of the “11 Missouri Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Alive in 2025.” Most of the entries matched what I’ve got for the state, which sadly lost Independence’s Twin last November. On the bright side, Number 11 was the new (built in 2022) Twin Crescent Drive-In in Buffalo MO, so I added that to my list.

The Twin Crescent, which has only one, permanent screen, is very much a drive-in. It has clearly marked paths for cars to drive up and park to watch the show and listen via FM stereo sound. (By the way, three miles away on the other side of Buffalo, an Autoscope operated for 20 years. That was a different kind of edge case – up to 122 cars all watching the same movie on individual screens. Is it still a drive-in without multiple cars watching a single screen? But I digress.)

The fourth item on the radio station list was “Lakeside, Ashland,” which is south of Columbia MO near the airport. The place charges by the carload. It has a permanent outdoor screen. And it has a large, grassy lawn in front of that screen, with a double-row parking lot farther back. You can see the layout on Google Maps.

Even Lakeside doesn’t seem sure what it is. Its FAQ page includes the question, “Is Lakeside a Drive-In or do I bring chairs and blankets?” The answer: “You can do both! We have VIP front row parking for the drive-in experience. You can also see and hear the movie very well from several rows back. However, most visitors bring chairs and blankets to sit on the lawn.” Those lawn tickets are $10 per carload in advance to park and get out of your car, or you can upgrade to $30 for a place to park and watch, including unlimited popcorn and soda.

If not for that front row, hearing the movie behind waves of lawn chairs via 1933-style loudspeakers, Lakeside obviously would not be a drive-in. If it included radio sound and a lot of single-row parking so that everyone could listen and watch the movie, then Lakeside would definitely be a drive-in. Instead, this place is where “most visitors” park their cars and bring their blankets to the grass near the screen. You could say the same for any city’s “movie in the park” night. But there is that one row that holds about 20 cars.

Kudos to the radio station for including this edge case, but is it really a drive-in? It’s a tough call, but I’m voting against. Call me a modernist snob, but the lack of in-car sound disqualifies Lakeside. That also means that if someone there installs an FM transmitter that fixes the sound for the first row or two, I’ll either need to change my mind or find a new way to draw the line between drive-in and not-a-drive-in. What do you think?

Drive-in list adds two more

Posted on by
ChiTown Drive-In at night, with movie on screen and rows of cars in a flat parking lot
photo from the ChiTown Movies web page

Edgecase drive-ins, those without ramps and screen towers, are always a little difficult for me to judge. That goes double for pandemic-inspired drive-ins, many of which had short runs and are all but forgotten. Those are the excuses I’m using for not adding two of them to the Carload active drive-in list until this week.

The first is ChiTown Movies, which is in Chicago as you’d expect. It’s connected to the ChiTown Futbol facility in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, and it opened on June 9, 2020. Food is available through the onsite restaurant, the ChiTown Grille. Although its parking lot holds just 106 cars, it’s been going strong for three seasons now. It has a dedicated projection booth and freestanding screen, so there’s no reason to keep it off the Carload list.

Although there were drive-ins all over the suburbs, those within the Chicago city limits were historically rare. The ChiTown might be only the second, after the Double Drive-In (1950-1995) on Columbus Avenue. Also, the ChiTown is less than a mile north of where old US 66 passed out of (or into) Chicago; you can pencil that note into your copy of Drive-Ins of Route 66.

The second new entry is a sketchier drive-in in an even rarer location. The Drive-In at Union Market is in Washington DC, and I believe it’s the first that ever opened within the District of Columbia itself. On one hand, it’s been operating for 10 years. On the other, it has no dedicated screen, using the side of the Union Market instead. In Google Street View, I don’t see a permanent projection booth. The monthly movie series is open to pedestrians, but the drive-in sells tickets for parking spots in the viewing field. Like I said, this is an edge case, but 10 years of drive-in movies in the same location counts for a lot.

If you know of other drive-ins that I need to add to the Carload active list, please drop me a line. I’ll keep looking for more.

How are you doing?

Posted on by
For this cropped bit of stock photography, do you know which drive-in was holding this religious service? I sure don’t. © Depositphotos / everett225

Hi there! Are you well? I sure hope so. I’m sorry and a little embarrassed to have left you without fresh posts for so long. 2020 has been a very strange year, and its effect on drive-ins has also been very strange. Writing about anything so small and relatively unimportant feels like The News for Parrots, but this is a drive-in theater blog.

First, this new blog theme is jarring, but a WordPress update broke the menus on the theme I had been using. I’ll need some time to find a good replacement with a dark background like a drive-in Saturday night. At least this one still seems okay on phones as well as desktops.

Now, about my absence here for a few months. At the start, I was researching my next drive-in book, Drive-Ins of Colorado. That book should be out around the end of September, a date which seems much closer than it used to. Then the pandemic hit, locking out all in-person research tools and making me question what’s really important in life. The feeling passed after a few weeks, and I went back to work on the Colorado book and on updating last year’s book, Drive-Ins of Route 66.

Two quick notes: If you have any photos of Colorado’s drive-ins, especially those that aren’t active any more, that you’d like to offer for inclusion into that book, please drop me a line at mkilgore (at) carload.com by August 24. And if you would like to peruse a first draft PDF (free, and worth every penny) of the book in exchange for noticing my mistakes, send me an email at the same address. That PDF should be ready before Labor Day.

Oh, yes, the blog. There has been too much news about drive-ins this year. Some were blocked from opening. Others were encouraged to open. Concession stands were closed. Concessions were being sold at the box office. Some drive-ins reopened their concession stands and returned to the practice of blocking outside food. Pop-up drive-ins sprouted all over. Nobody had any fresh movies to show.

I feel especially bad about not really being able to maintain the list of active drive-ins. What’s there is correct as of January 2020, but what does an accurate list look like today? What does it mean when an established drive-in can’t open because of state or local mandates? When a pop-up opens in an indoor theater parking lot, is that really a new drive-in?

All of this is one tiny part of world upheaval. Over half a million painful deaths from the Covid virus. Society mostly shut down, then partially reopened into partial paranoia. A growing awareness that persons of color are less likely to have successful interactions with law enforcement than pale folks like me. Discussions of moving election dates, deciding which votes to count, and what are okay ways to vote. (Carload World HQ is in Colorado, an all-mail ballot state, yet I don’t feel corrupt.)

That’s why it’s hard for me to generate sufficient enthusiasm to relay a summary of the upcoming Metallica concert for drive-ins, or the new pop-up Motorama in Santa Fe NM, or even winds knocking down the long-closed Hill-Top’s screen in Joliet IL, although I do need to update the Route 66 book for that last one. I’ll drop by again when I have more news of my Colorado book, and maybe I’ll also find something else I’d enjoy sharing with you. Thanks always for dropping by.