Fresh Pond Drive-In
80 Wheeler Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02138
80 Wheeler Street,
Cambridge,
MA
02138
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The Fresh Pond Drive-In opened May 17, 1951 and was operated by George McLaighlin and Affiliated Theatres Corporation. It was closed in 1975.
Contributed by
robert arria
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Drive-ins.com has a page on this theatre. I’d like to nail down its exact location, and what is now on the site.
I looked through some old, printed USGS topographic maps and found this theatre’s location. It was on the west side of Alewife Brook Parkway (Route 16), just south of the bridge over the Fitchburg Line railroad tracks.
If you look at this current USGS topo map, you’ll see the site marked “Substa”. That’s because it now contains a large field of electrical equipment. The Google map also shows this if you look at the Satellite or Hybrid view.
If you compare this photograph with a Google Maps satellite view of Wheeler Street, it appears that cars entered the Drive-In from dead-end Wheeler Street, and the screen was next to the entrance, facing north.
It also looks like the westmost part of the former Drive-In is used today as a parking lot.
I remember the Fresh Pond Drive-In quite well. When my sister and I were pre-teens (my brother hadn’t come along yet), our parents would pile everybody into the family Rambler Station wagon, take us out to dinner, and then to the Fresh Pond Drive-In, where my sister and I would lie in the back seat with pillows and blankets. We saw movies such as “The Mouse that Roared”, “Time Machine”, and a bunch of others.
Here is a 1955 aerial photo of the drive-in, courtesy of HistoricAerials.com.
This opened on May 17th, 1951.
I remember seeing True Grit there loved Fresh Pond drive in
Closed in 1975.