Nov. 4: Bengies Drive-In Theatre, Middle River MD

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It’s Day 308 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. With pretty clear sailing on a rainy Saturday, it took me only two hours to drive from the Delsea Drive-In in Vineland NJ to Bengies Drive-In Theatre in Middle River MD, just east of Baltimore.

Bengies is the last drive-in theater in Maryland, and is frequently packed in the summer. According to the Washington Post, it was built in 1955-56 by brothers Jack, Paul, and Hank Vogel. The area had been named for former president Benjamin Harrison, and the drive-in took that name, opening as Bengie’s (with an apostrophe) on June 6, 1956. The drive-in dropped the apostrophe when it changed its marquee in the early 1970s.

The screen at Bengies is huge – 120 feet by 52 feet, and can support over 1000 cars although its normal capacity is 750. The drive-in has a separate web page dedicated to its assertion that it’s “the biggest continuously operated drive-in screen in the USA.” (Bengies also has a separate web page devoted to its unhappiness with The Baltimore Sun’s words and actions in 2000. But I digress.) I’ll beat back one more contender – the web site for Coldwater MI’s Capri Drive-In Theater claims its main screen is 150 feet wide, but when I asked, they agreed it was just 115 feet.

This drive-in was built and designed by architectural engineer Jack Vogel. (Some of his later architectural plans for Bengies are in the Library of Congress.) According to Constructing Image, Identity, and Place, issue IX (April 2003), “Vogel was so concerned with efficiency that he even designed the women’s rest rooms with ladies’ urinals, which are still functioning”.

Kerry Segrave wrote in his book Drive-In Theaters that in 1976 Bengies narrowly fought off a proposal to prohibit showing movies where they could be seen by motorists. “This ozoner used to screen X-rated movies but discontinued them on May 4, 1976, after numerous complaints, before the proposed bill was introduced.”

Current owner D. Edward Vogel has been working at Bengies since he was nine years old, according to a 2009 CNN article. That would have been about when his mother married Jack Vogel in the Post’s timeline. Capital News Service wrote that he formally purchased the drive-in in 2007.

In recent years, Bengies has tangled with Royal Farms, which opened a convenience store across the street. The drive-in sued in 2010, claiming that the light from the store was interfering with the drive-in. In June 2012, a jury agreed to the tune of $838,000, according to The Baltimore Sun, but the judge later threw out the verdict. The Maryland Daily Record reported in November 2014 that an appeals court let that decision stand.

“I believe every drive-in theater takes on the personality of the owner,” Vogel said in the Capital News Service segment that is the YouTube video of the day. Watch it and you’ll see the apostrophe in Bengie’s on the side of the concession stand, which roughly matched the way the marquee used to look. If you want some irony, also check out a YouTube video about Bengies shot from that Royal Farms convenience store across the street.

This drizzly evening was a retro triple feature marking the close of Bengies’ regular season, although it posted on its Facebook page that “We have a few off season events in the works for Black Friday and a Holiday DouBBle feature in early December. If the right right movie (and weather) comes along in the mean time we may open as well.”

Miles Today / Total: 102 / 34787 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: The Sandlot / 187

Nearby Restaurant: When I’m in the Baltimore area, I need to find a restaurant that sells crabs. Schultz’s Crab House is one of the closest candidates to Bengies, and it might be the best. It’s been around longer than the drive-in serving up lots of seafood. I had the backfin crab cake and fried shrimp platter with some cold beer on the side. Food like this in such a comfortable atmosphere makes it easy to see why Schultz’s has lasted.

Where I Virtually Stayed: One of the closest cluster of hotels to Bengies is by the White Marsh area near Baltimore. One of those hotels is a Hampton Inn, so that’s the end of that search. After such a rainy day, I wanted the hotel equivalent of comfort food, and the familiar features of a Hampton always do the trick. My room didn’t have a fridge or microwave, but at least there were cookies to greet me at check-in and the standard Hampton breakfast in the morning. Ready for another drive!

Only in Middle River: Next door, Rosedale MD is the home of Cateraptasaurus, a 12-foot, 9-inch sculpture made entirely from used tractor parts. Built by Derek Arnold, it’s stationed outside the offices of Alban Cat, a Caterpillar equipment dealership.

Next stop: Goochland Drive-In Theater, Hadensville VA.

Nov. 3: Delsea Drive-In, Vineland NJ

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It’s Day 307 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It’s Friday, so Halloween’s behind us, meaning no more special spooky showings anywhere. I really needed to find drive-ins that were still showing movies in November, and that meant a four-hour drive south from Coxsackie NY to the Delsea Drive-In in Vineland NJ.

According to Cinema Treasures, the Delsea was a single-screen, 700-car drive-in operated by the Budco chain when it opened on April 29, 1949. Budco was later bought by American Multi Cinema, which abruptly closed it in July 1987. It sat quietly for over 15 years as the rest of the drive-ins in New Jersey, the birthplace of the drive-in movie, also closed.

In 2003 a local pediatrician, Dr. John DeLeonardis, bought the property to build a skate park to keep his patients active. Then he saw the 100-foot screen was still in pretty good shape, so he started down the path of restoring the drive-in. The Delsea reopened in July 2004 with the same projectionist who was there on its last night in 1987.

DeLeonardis added a second screen in 2008. In 2011, he installed a bank of solar panels, making the Delsea the first solar-powered drive-in. (Of course, that’s not literally true; the panels generate into the grid during the day, and the Delsea uses electricity at night, but the net usage is pretty close to self-sufficiency.)

NJ.com wrote in 2011 that DeLeonardis’ wife Jude, can be found weekend nights working the snack bar, where she put edamame, stir-fry asparagus, wraps and other healthy choices on the menu.

The Delsea is the home theater for the Drive-In Film Festival, a non-profit organization that brings new, family-friendly independent films to drive-in theaters free of charge to promote filmmaking and drive-ins. They’ve got a great video about themselves and the Delsea on YouTube, although the embedded video of the day is a different one focusing more specifically on DeLeonardis and the results of his work.

On a wonderfully, unseasonably warm evening around 70 degrees, I was treated to the latest blockbuster entry in the Thor series, which made a great drive-in movie. It was nice to watch in the state where the industry was invented.

Miles Today / Total: 242 / 34685 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Thor: Ragnarok / 186

Nearby Restaurant: When I don’t want to think about dinner, I’ll often pick pizza, so I went over to the Taste of Italy Pizzeria in Vineland. The place was all right inside, but I just wanted something to take back to my room for some quiet munching time. The chicken parmigiana pizza was the perfect compromise between something familiar and something uniquely Vineland.

Where I Virtually Stayed: After my longest drive in weeks, I just wanted something dependable, which to me is another name for Hampton Inn. The one in Vineland had high ceilings in its breakfast area, which gives us a much airier feel, and there’s a nice indoor pool and hot tub. Meanwhile, the usual amenities were there in my room and the usual solid breakfast was waiting in the morning. Ready for another drive!

Only in Vineland: For decades, the most famous place in Vineland was the Palace of Depression, an eighteen-spired, pastel-colored castle in a swamp, built in 1932 out of rusted auto parts and mud. According to a nice summary on Roadside America, George Daynor built the palace to show that the Great Depression was beatable. Daynor said he was guided to the site by an angel, and that he ate frogs, fish, rabbits and squirrels during the three years it took to build.

Next stop: Bengies Drive-In Theatre, Middle River MD.

Nov. 2: Hi-Way Drive-In Theatre, Coxsackie NY

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It’s Day 306 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. This was one more day of short drives – just 20 minutes from the Greenville Drive-In Outdoor Cinema, in Greenville NY of course, to the Hi-Way Drive-In Theatre in Coxsackie NY.

NewYorkDriveIns.com has plenty of newspaper clippings of the Hi-Way’s origins. It opened with a single screen on May 4, 1951, owned by brothers Morris and Rafael Klein. (The 1952 Theatre Catalog listed the drive-in’s executive as Mrs. Frieda Klein. Sounds like somebody’s wife was taking charge!)

Roger Babcock began working at the Hi-Way in 1971 and met his future wife when she started working there. When the Kleins decided to sell in 1976, the Babcocks took over, and they’ve been running it ever since. (Although some sources suggest the Babcocks didn’t take full ownership until the mid-1990s.) They added a second screen in 1999, a third screen in 2004, and a fourth in 2011. Along the way, they converted from in-car speakers to radio sound.

There was a flurry of drama in 2014 when the Babcocks faced the prospect of finding the money to convert all four screens to digital projection. In January that year, Roger told the Kingston Daily Freeman, “We have no plans on shutting the drive-in down, none whatsoever.” After donation boxes and an IndieGoGo campaign yielded a pittance, he found an unusual source of financing. “Social Security at my age is going to help pay for this,” he said. “With Social Security, the monthly payments are reasonable enough for us to convert two to three screens.” They eventually converted all four.

I wrote about Roger and the Hi-Way back in October 2013, when he was still deciding whether to get a loan to buy some projectors. Too bad the lengthy, incisive article I referenced then is gone now. That just happens sometimes.

The drive-in closed for the 2017 season after Columbus Day weekend. They posted on their Facebook page, “see ya in March, Snow banks permitting”.

The video of the day is a delightful documentary short by Tansy Michaud and Adam Carboni called Enjoy Your Intermission. (There’s a great interview with the filmmakers here.) It profiles the Hi-Way and the people who ran it when they were still using their beloved 35mm film.

Miles Today / Total: 14 / 34443 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 185

Nearby Restaurant: The Pegasus Restaurant in Coxsackie has been around almost as long as the Babcocks. It’s not one of the cheap eats joints I often prefer, but now and then I need to show I can behave at a nice place. I was rewarded by a plate of broiled scallops in a spicy red sauce with a side of shrimp. By the end of the evening, I could see how this place has stayed around for so long.

Where I Virtually Stayed: I’m not sure why they called the hotel up the road the Best Western New Baltimore Inn. It’s one of a cluster of hotels by the closest NY State Thruway exit to the drive-in, but even that highway doesn’t go anywhere near Baltimore. At any rate, the price was pretty nice, my room had all the modern amenities, and breakfast included scrambled eggs and bacon. It’s all good.

Only in Coxsackie: This town has a class of viruses named after it. According to Wikipedia, the coxsackieviruses were discovered in 1948–49 by Dr. Gilbert Dalldorf, a scientist working at the New York State Department of Health. Searching for a polio cure, he found that fluid collected from a non-polio virus preparation could block polio’s damage. Eventually he discovered viruses that often mimicked mild polio, and he named them after the town where he had obtained “the first fecal specimens.”

Next stop: Delsea Drive-In, Vineland NJ.