Fly-In Drive-In

The Fly-In Drive-In in Wall Township, New Jersey, opened on June 3, 1948, beside a small airfield on Route 34. Its founder, Edward Brown Jr., was a former Navy pilot, and the idea was his own: a drive-in that took airplanes as well as cars. The 1950-51 Theatre Catalog called it the first known drive-in built to serve airplanes as well as cars. It held about 500 cars on 16 acres, and later accounts say 25 small planes. Some reports placed it at Asbury Park or Belmar, but it stood in Wall, and it is generally described as the first fly-in drive-in anywhere.

The Theatre Catalog said the architect was Claude Birdsall, and that the buildings and equipment cost nearly $125,000 and went up in about three and a half months. A pilot landed at the adjoining airport and taxied over to the last row, about 50 feet from the airport, where planes fanned out behind the cars. Each plane had its own speaker, so passengers could watch from the cabin. When the feature ended, a jeep towed the planes back to the field. The catalog said management hadn't pushed the service hard. About eight to ten planes landed in a typical week, because handling them safely took a lot of staff.

Brown later put up a second Fly-In on Route 72 near Manahawkin, and the Wall theater came to be called Fly-In No. 1 to tell them apart. Walter Reade's theater company ran it in its later years. It closed on September 7, 1966. The idea never spread far, since it needed an airfield next door and customers who owned planes. The field is still there as Monmouth Executive Airport. The theater's buildings are gone, and a flagpole marks about where the screen stood.