Muralist meliorates Mahoning

Posted on by

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!

Bringing back Long Island drive-in memories

Posted on by

The Babylon (NY) Beacon columnist Sandi Brewster-walker looked back with a lengthy tribute to the drive-in theaters of Long Island. In particular, the article featured the Johnny All Weather Drive-In Theatre that opened in 1957 in Copiague. It was a rare (probably “only” at the time) drive-in with an adjacent indoor theater where the same movie would run during bad weather.

The Beacon article rambles past the history of drive-ins in general and circles around to some Long Island drive-in history. In the early 1950s, some town councils voted against zoning variances that would have allowed such theaters, in one case because “it would give rise to a moral problem.”

Times changed. In 1961, a similar theater in Long Island opened, the Smithtown All-Weather Drive-In in Nesconset. Then times changed again. Johnny All-Weather closed after the 1984 season, and Smithtown closed a year later.

There’s so much more to read about the Johnny All-Weather and its other Long Island drive-ins. The Long Island page from NewYorkDriveIns.com is probably the best single source, but you should start with the Beacon column, so go read it!

Video: Highway 21 keeps tradition alive in SC

Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago, The Beaufort (SC) Gazette ran a slice-of-life feature about a typical weekend at the Highway 21 Drive-In there. It’s a lengthy, well-written, gentle article about the day-to-day chores of keeping the place running right and a tribute to the Highway 21 making a Travel Channel list of 10 Classic drive-ins.

Since the Gazette waited a few weeks before running this story, I don’t feel as bad that I waited a few weeks to tell you about it. The good news is that it lets me embed just a bit of video from the Highway 21. But the article has plenty of fun details and several nice photos, so you really should go read it!