Category Archives: Pennsylvania

PA Man Applies to Revive the Moonlite

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The Moonlight Drive-In marquee, overgrown with weeds

The Moonlite marquee as it looked five years ago. Photo by Mike Kerick from the Carload Flickr pool

The drive-in revival continues to build. According to The Citizens’ Voice of Wilkes-Barre PA, a man has applied to the local county zoning hearing board to be allowed to renovate and reopen the Moonlite Drive-In of nearby West Wyoming PA.

Eric Symeon of Exeter said he is negotiating to buy the property from the West Wyoming Borough, which owns the vacant site, contingent on zoning approval. The borough council seems willing to cooperate with the necessary variance to the otherwise residential area.

According to his application, Symeon wants to show movies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights between May and September. He wrote that he plans to repair the concession stand, ticket booth and screen. Based on Mike Kerick’s Flickr album of Moonlite photos from five years ago, Symeon has plenty of repair opportunities.

The slow decay of the single-screen Moonlite site has been well documented online. To watch nature reclaim the vacant lot, compare an aerial photo from the Moonlite’s heyday with this 2011 Google Earth photo and the latest from 2016. For ground-level narratives with lots of photos, check out this July 2008 post from Forgotten PA and this May 2013 entry from the Drive-In Theater Adventures blog.

When did the Moonlite open? Exactly when did it close? I could only find a few clues from Carload World Headquarters. It wasn’t listed in the 1955 Theatre Catalog, my most recent edition, so it probably opened after 1955. (It was definitely open by 1967.) I found another TCV article from 2010 that said the Moonlite’s former owners sued the borough, alleging that “sewer installation in the early 1990s caused increased water-retention issues that thwarted potential sales of the property in 2005 and 2006.” A borough solicitor said the site suffered from flooding before the sewers were installed, and that the Moonlight “has not shown a movie since the 1980s.” A PDF from that lawsuit says “the Moonlite Drive-In operated until approximately 1991.” (Hope that Symeon has a good drainage plan!)

Back to Symeon. “This is something I always wanted to do since I was little,” he told The Citizens’ Voice. “Every time I’d drive by, I’d see it just sitting there. Everyone in the valley knows about it.” The projected opening is Summer 2017. I look forward to hearing more about this project.

Muralist meliorates Mahoning

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Mural on drive-in buildingPennsylvania muralist Christian Egbert has a business plan that seems to work for everyone. Egbert paints a mural on a local business for just the cost of materials, and then gets commissions from some of the folks who are impressed when they see his work.

That’s a very quick summary of the entertaining story published today in the Reading Eagle. The part we care about appears halfway down the article. Egbert met someone from the Mahoning Drive-In at a flea market a few months ago, and the result was a gorgeous mural that covers the projection building there. It takes a few clicks in the slide show, but you can eventually see what a great match that artwork is for a night under the stars.

According to the Eagle, “The drive-in’s new owner, Jeff Mattox, covered the cost of the supplies, but Egbert donated his work. In exchange, the artist was given space to sell paintings at the drive-in.” For more details, you know you ought to go read it!

Circle Drive-In adds fall football

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Circle Drive-In marquee

photo by drpep from the Carload Flickr pool

The Valley Advantage of Scranton PA clued us in on a smart promotion by the Circle Drive-In of Dickson City. Since mid-September, the Circle has been showing Monday Night Football on its big screen. Attendance has been light, but I’ll bet it would beat any movies shown on a Monday night. Besides, manager Dave Castelli thinks the crowds will grow once viewers spread the word.

Castelli said that he thinks he’s the only drive-in that shows MNF, and notes that the Circle has a licensing agreement with the NFL. That’s a really important step for anyone who wants to bring in a crowd for a game anywhere outside the home, because the NFL keeps a vigilant eye on such endeavors.

The Circle is also scheduled to show a Penn State game on an alumni night Oct. 22, two days before its last MNF event of the drive-in season.

There are other special events planned for the Circle in the months to come. “We’re going to throw everything up against the wall and see what sticks,” Castelli said. “That’s what’s changing about our industry — you have to be a destination.”

For more details and a nice photo from the Valley Advantage article, you really should go read it!