Manahawkin Drive-In
205 New Jersey 72,
Manahawkin,
NJ
08050
205 New Jersey 72,
Manahawkin,
NJ
08050
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There’s a lengthy article about the history and people of the Manahawkin at Jersey Shore Online today. I saved an Internet Archive link.
It had a curved screen! Don’t see that at drive-ins very often.
February 1982 image added credit the Asbury Park Sunday Press, courtesy Patrick Leon Asay.
After a closer look at the 1963 aerial photo, the Fly-In Drive-In #2 had it’s own screen and parking area closer to the runway. The landing strip may have been able to serve both drive-ins, as they were less than half a mile away from each other. It’s hard to tell if both drive-ins were operating simultaneously, so more research will need to be done on a local level.
This drive-in begins appearing in Film Daily Yearbook in 1958 as Fly-In Drive-In #2, owned by Walter Reade Theatres, which coincidentally also owned the other Fly-In Drive-In in Farmingdale. By 1966, it is referred to as Manahawkin Drive-In in Film Daily Yearbook.
If you look at aerial photos from 1963, you will notice the landing strip west of the drive-in, along with a couple of pathways between the drive-in and the landing strip.
More of a novelty than anything, this was one of very few Fly-In Drive-Ins to be built.
The address (at least for Google) is 205 New Jersey 72, Manahawkin, NJ. Currently, a Kohl’s and Bed, Bath, and Beyond sits on the property with no trace of the drive-in remaining. http://tinyurl.com/jsaq49r
The theater was active until I was about 5 or six, possible longer, so it was still open around 1980/81.
In 1970, I helped clean up the concession stand after a fire. I worked for Berlo Vending CO. The theatre was stiloled owned by Shapiro. The district manager, Jimmy McHugh was there. The film on the marquee was The Hawaiian’s. The booth had RCA/Century projectors.
In 1974, when THE FRANKS owned it, a streaker ran through the snack bar.
Attached link puts the theater in operation from at least 1963 through 1976.
http://www.drive-ins.com/theater/njtmana