South Philadelphia Drive-In
S. Broad Street and Hartranft Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19145
S. Broad Street and Hartranft Street,
Philadelphia,
PA
19145
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Boxoffice, May 12, 1958: “The 1,400-car South City Drive-In has been purchased by Redstone Drive-In Theatres of Boston.”
I Know that in 64 it was the South Phila Drive In. I remember as it was the only time I was at the theater. It would be interesting to see fi someone can find when it changed names. To my knowledge it was operated by George Hamid who operated all the Atlantic City theaters and built the Stadium theater across the street which is now demolished.
All references in Film Daily Yearbook and International Motion Picture Almanac call this South City Drive-In. The grand opening ad indicates it was called South City Drive-In. The signage in the photo uploaded on the photo page also points toward this drive-in being called South City.
June 2nd, 1950 grand opening ad
My first experience with PIX mosquito repellant. The films were “Imitation of Life” with Lana Turner and “Raisin in the Sun” with Sydney Poitier. I mostly slept in the back seat.
The drive in was actually named the South Philadelphia drive-in
Ground breaking for Veterans Stadium was 10 April, 1967 so 1966 would have been the last year for the South City Drive-In.
It was demolished to make way for Veterans stadium the Phillies/Eagle stadium shich has since been demolished. It had a huge screen. I remember in 1966 they were playing Elvis Pressley Girl Girls Girls.
Approx. location for this drive-in was S Broad St & Hartranft St, Philadelphia, PA 19145.
Here is a 1952 sketch from Temple U:
http://tinyurl.com/yg2vvxx
Here is an interesting view fromn 1963. JFK Stadium is to the south. The drive-in is where Veterans Stadium was before it too was demolished. The Spectrum had not yet been built.
http://tinyurl.com/ya85epj
In the late sixties, the South City was part of the Northeast Drive-In Theater Corp., headquartered in Boston. Northeast at that time operated drive-ins in eleven states. One of the chief officers was Sumner Redstone. The other two chief officers were Redstones as well.