Lockport Drive-In

The Lockport Drive-In in Gasport, New York, opened on July 28, 1946, on Route 31 between Gasport and Lockport, with Eddie Cantor in Kid Millions. It had one screen and room for about 250 cars. Its opening ad sat inside a wavy border: two shows nightly, rain or clear, 50 cents for adults, children free, and at the bottom, in case anyone wondered, cars free. A trade item in The Exhibitor on June 16, 1948, said Walter Dion had opened his Lockport Drive-In at Gasport with a capacity of 300 cars, which does not match the 1946 date and 250-car figure above. The same journal reported on November 29, 1950, that Dion had closed it, and on July 18, 1951, that George F. Tatar was the new owner-operator. In early 1953 a trade note had Falk in partnership with Tatar instead of Anthony Ragusa, and in May 1954 the Independent Film Journal said the drive-in, formerly owned by Tatar and Falk, was now a partnership of Tatar and Ragusa. By 1952 it was run by the group of Ragusa, Tatar, Louis Battaglia and John Battaglia, who also owned the Transit Drive-In in Lockport that opened that year.

It changed hands several times after that, with trade directories listing Tatar and Falk through the mid-1960s and Midway around 1980. An ad from around 1960 claimed the only drive-in showing in western New York that year of a certain Hitchcock thriller, at 90 cents admission. Cinema Treasures says that at one point it ran porn, until the people living on the hill behind it complained to the town, and that by the end it was run down and showing second-run films at $5 a carload.

It closed on September 13, 1987, with The Lost Boys and Little Shop of Horrors, and the Lockport Union Sun and Journal covered the closing the next year. A later visitor described ramps under piles of garbage, with the snack bar and projection building still standing.