From left, Bryce Dielman, Amy Dielman, Jonathan Harrington and Winter Beeks laugh as they play“ What Do You Meme” before the start of a movie at the 13-24 Drive-In in Wabash, Indiana.
Photo by Kelly Lafferty Gerber thing we did when we were little.”
But that uniquely American movie-watching experience has gone from flame to flicker in recent decades.
In the 1950s, as Baby Boomers returned from World War II, packed up their cars and moved to the suburbs, about 5,000 drive-ins could be found scattered across towns in every state.
Today, less than 300 remain. Most are located in just a handful of states such as Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. That leaves most of the country in a“ drive-in desert,” explained Ross Melnick, a film and media studies professor at the University of California Santa Barbara.
“ The drive-in experience just doesn’ t exist for most people,” he said.“ It just gets removed from the things that people love to do.”
Now, as urban development, soaring land prices and streaming services like Netflix all threaten the survival of the nation’ s remaining drive-ins, theater owners are fighting hard and getting creative to keep an American tradition alive.
MAKING THE OLD NEW
Steve Sauerbeck, a former corporate employee of Regal Cinemas, spent years watching drive-ins shutter their screens. That didn’ t stop him from building a brand new one from the ground up in La Grange, Kentucky, about 25 miles east of Louisville.
Sauerbeck Family Drive-In opened in 2018 just off Interstate 71 after his business purchased the land, cleared the trees and invested about $ 2 million to put in a 98-foot-tall screen, a digital movie projector and indoor concession area.
On a Friday night in August, the open field filled with folks tucked into flatbed trucks, SUVs, minivans and even a Tesla Cybertruck to watch the double feature“ Freakier Friday” and“ Fantastic Four.”
One family wore matching pajamas. An older couple played card games on a small table as dusk set in, bring-
Wearing matching pajamas, from left, Alisia Spears, Carissa Hursh and Holli Anderson mug for a photo before the start of“ Freakier Friday” at the Sauerbeck Family Drive In in
LaGrange, Kentucky.
Photo by Kelly Lafferty Gerber
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