Danbury Drive-In

84 Federal Road,
Danbury, CT 06810

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Lockwood & Gordon Enterprises

Architects: Charles H. Abramowitz

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Danbury Drive-In

The Danbury Drive-In was opened September 6, 1949 with Red Skelton in “The Fuller Brush Man” & Randolph Scott in “Corner Creek”. It had a capacity for 450 cars. This was later increased to 908 cars. It was closed around 1985.

Contributed by Dave Bonan

Recent comments (view all 16 comments)

shoeshoe14
shoeshoe14 on March 4, 2005 at 7:42 pm

I went there with a friend today. Had to lock up our bikes and walk it, as there was a foot of snow the whole way. The driveway is quite long with the jersey barriers on the left. A few hundred feet up on the left is another gate, a bulldozer and a neighborhood (beaver brook road) and there’s a large hill overlooking what was the field. Further up the driveway is what is now used as a paintball field with pallets, moguls, metal pipes and other stuff for that sport. It looks like it was an old christmas tree farm after it closed as the main field has a significant amount of small xmas type trees about 5 feet high. the property sign out front says it’s 9.5 acres. the back is marked off with a wooden fence from the neighborhood.

shoeshoe14
shoeshoe14 on August 23, 2005 at 10:19 am

There was a snippit about the Danbury Drive-In in the recent Sunday Danbury paper, The News-Times. It was from the weekly section called, “Looking Back” in which they look back 25, 50, 75 and 100 years. This one was from August 14, 1980 in which they talked about a series of robberies in Danbury and Brookfield and told of the Danbury Drive-In being held at gunpoint and robbed.

shoeshoe14
shoeshoe14 on July 12, 2006 at 5:52 pm

So. Went by today and the whole property’s trees have been cut down to stumps. There’s a sign on the roadway saying it will be the new Saturn of Danbury. Great. More cars.

bicyclereporter
bicyclereporter on June 16, 2010 at 11:18 am

The last film shown was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, according to Danbury historian, Bill Devlin.

The drive-in opened Sept. 6, 1949. The capacity expanded to 908 cars at one time.

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NYozoner
NYozoner on February 13, 2011 at 10:21 pm

80 Federal Rd, Danbury, CT 06810

The above address will map accurately to the location of the drive-in.

Here is a 1955 aerial photo of the drive-in, courtesy of HistoricaAerials.com.

NYozoner
NYozoner on February 13, 2011 at 10:22 pm

This drive-in opened in 1949 and closed in 1984.

Drive-In 54
Drive-In 54 on April 13, 2015 at 5:37 am

The address is:84 Federal Road, Danbury, CT 06810 ‎

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on December 18, 2022 at 3:55 am

Opened on 6th September 1949 with ‘The Fuller Brush Man" and “Coroner Creek”. Closed in 1984 with “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”.

50sSNIPES
50sSNIPES on December 18, 2022 at 1:50 pm

Is it during the 1984 season or at the end of the 1984 season?

50sSNIPES
50sSNIPES on July 1, 2024 at 2:42 pm

During the 1983 season, the Danbury Drive-In became nationwide headlines following a double suicide that happened at the Danbury Drive-In and a Massachusetts house.

On May 14 of that same year, two 17-year-olds who were identified themselves as both a boyfriend and a girlfriend who at the time previously graduated from North Salem High School in North Salem, Massachusetts three weeks prior, were arguing in the middle of a movie until crossing the lines.

Shortly after the movie was finished, one of the employees of the Danville Drive-In walked around inside the concession building until witnessing a female hanging inside the bathroom with her belt around her neck. The male who was responsible for the incident later hanged himself with his own belt in his North Salem home several weeks later on June 6, 1983. Three months later, the Connecticut Medical Examiner determined that both deaths are ruled as a self-suicide.

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