SOUTH GATE : Drive-In Theater Fades to Black

Doomed to demolition, the South Gate Drive-in Theater looked on its last day like it did in the 1950s and ‘60s: just right.

The towering blank screen waited for the sun to go down. Popcorn popped in the snack shop. The skinny, bent poles holding the speakers were stuck in the acres of gritty, oil-stained asphalt like candles in a cake.

Classic cars began to arrive.

But as the theater prepared to show its final movies May 15, it seemed unlikely that there would be a sea of cars like there had been so often so long ago.

Not even with a triple feature--”Grease,” “American Hot Wax” and “Blackboard Jungle.”

Not even with a “Last Blast to the Past Celebration” that the city and Pacific Theatres, which owned and operated the drive-in, had devised to mark the end of “a piece of American history.”

In a few days the outdoor theater just off Firestone Boulevard would be torn down to make room for the expansion of a trucking firm next door. With drive-ins fading fast, the end of this one had been inevitable. But a few people hated to see it go.

“It’s kind of like saying goodby to an old friend,” said Terry McWeeney, who had pulled up toward the front in his shiny orange ’37 Ford pickup.

The theater was built in 1951, and for the first few years was known as the Aladdin. It held more than 800 vehicles.

Its heyday began later in the decade, according to Frank Diaz, a longtime director of operations for Pacific Theatres who spent more than a few nights at the South Gate Drive-in.

“In the late ‘50s people got tired of watching television every night,” Diaz said. “The best place to go was the drive-in. It . . . got the family out. We had dancing under the screen with a live band. Back in those days we were full an hour before show time. We had to turn cars away.”

Drive-in theaters did a brisk business in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Diaz said, then started going downhill in the ‘80s when the property they were on became too valuable not to redevelop. Those drive-ins that did survive did not attract the crowds they once had.

“People are more sophisticated,” Diaz said. “They want better sound and picture quality.”

In its last 10 years, as South Gate has changed to a predominantly Latino city, the drive-in theater showed Spanish-language movies. The last two years, charging $5 a car, it was open only on weekends.

But South Gate will gain in revenue what it loses in nostalgia. “This ends up being real positive for the city because it will end up with $175,000 more in taxes and 600 more jobs,” Dickens said.

But not for McWeeney and his friend, Jack Hule, who sat in lawn chairs beside their cars and reminisced.

“There used to be real long lines here,” said McWeeney, 54, a South Gate police officer. “If it was a real popular movie like ‘Summer Place’ with Sandra Dee, this place would be packed.”

“It was just a nice place to come to,” said Hule, 58, a retired truck driver. “My wife and I have been married 30 years, and we came here when we were dating. It was great, I’m tellin’ you. You looked forward to Friday night and Saturday night, coming here to show off your vehicles and then going to all the drive-in restaurants in the neighborhood.”