Category Archives: Virginia

Voice of America celebrates drive-in theaters

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Voice of America News ran a wonderful video feature on the Family Drive-In in Stephens City VA, using it as an example of drive-in theaters in general. VoA ran the full transcript on the page that originally hosted the video, but watching it is a lot more fun.

I guess the folks at the Family might have a point about being in the Washington DC metro area, even though Maryland’s Bengies is closer. For one thing, they got DC-based VoA to come out to do its drive-in story there. And once they got there, VoA didn’t have any problem finding patrons who also made the long drive. I’m especially glad that VoA found nearby motels that host drive-in tourists; I keep telling one of Carload’s advertisers, TripAdvisor, that there are a lot of people like that.

Most of all, I’m just grateful for another nice video snapshot of the way a drive-in looks in 2013, in this case just before digital projection. The classic black and white photos are a nice addition, too. Check it out!

Media outlets celebrate 80 years of drive-ins

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Fiesta Drive-In screen

photo by Neon Michael, from the Carload Flickr pool

Rather than adding separate posts about everybody celebrating the 80th anniversary of the drive-in theater, I’ll put them all together for you here so you can read as many of them as you want.

  • USA Today picked up a Cherry Hills NJ Courier-Post story. The best part is a photo of the first drive-in courtesy of Pauline Hollinghead, the inventor’s nephew’s wife.
  • Philly.com ran an article with a different photo of that first drive-in. The article adds some perspective I hadn’t seen elsewhere. “The theater opened in an era when Admiral Wilson Boulevard and adjacent Crescent Boulevard (Route 130) were lined with flashy attractions and establishments of all sorts, including a dog-racing track, an airport, and an enormous Sears department store (now undergoing demolilition).”
  • Gadling.com used the occasion for an interview with Craig Derman, photographer of The Drive-In Project, a look at abandoned drive-in movie theaters across America. And it shows a picture of the Comanche (Buena Vista CO). Hey, the Comanche isn’t abandoned!
  • The Connecticut Post ran a slide show of classic drive-in photos, leading off with the iconic Life Magazine photo with Charlton Heston that we talked about earlier.
  • ABC News ran a different set of black and white drive-in photos, mostly from Getty Images.
  • Parade had yet another slide show.
  • The press release web site PRWeb.com used the anniversary to promote the Family Drive-In Theatre (Stephens City VA) as part of Go Blue Ridge Travel’s “Kids Bucket List“. Have we already forgotten what “bucket list” means? Do kids around there have a high mortality rate?
  • The Kentuck Art Center (Northport AL) commemorated the occasion in its monthly Art Night with an outdoor screen looping vintage intermission ads and a drive-in themed photo booth for visitors to use, according to the University of Alabama’s The Crimson White.
  • Finally, the Orange County Register posted a great infographic (PDF) about the rise and fade of drive-ins through the years. Check it out!

Family Drive-In opens for 58th season

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Family_fromsiteWHAG, Hagerstown MD’s news leader, recently ran a video report about the 2013 season opener of the Family Drive-In across the border in Stephens City VA. The Family bills itself as “the only drive-in left in northern Virginia and the DC Metro area”. I’ll grant the northern Virginia part, but the Family really isn’t near Washington DC. Bengies, in suburban Baltimore, is at least 10 miles and 10 minutes closer to the Washington Monument than the Family. But I digress.

I really wish I could embed that video here, but you’ll have to go visit Your4State.com to see it. I also wish that video’s page wasn’t messed up; there’s more to read but you’ll need to highlight the text or view the page’s source to overcome the black-on-black type after the first few paragraphs. Or maybe it’s just my computer. I digress again.

Jim Kopp owns the Family, but longtime box office employee Paula Cooper has the best quote. “Every night, somebody will say ‘will you show the movies?'” Cooper said. “And I say ‘as long as we get some cars’ and ‘what’s the magic number?’ I don’t know because we’ve never closed it down.” Go watch the rest!