E.M. Loew's Providence Drive-In
611 Pawtucket Avenue,
Pawtucket,
RI
02860
611 Pawtucket Avenue,
Pawtucket,
RI
02860
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WJAR, Providence, had a flashback segment last October showing that the drive-in suffered an extensive fire on Oct. 8, 1978.
Built on the site of an old velodrome(cycledrome). 700 cars. Closed in 1977. Demolished in 1989. Site is now a shopping centre(Dollor Tree).
This drive-in was definitely still there well into the 70s. I saw Jaws there in 1976.
Above is now incorrect. Approx. address for this drive-in was at what is now 611 Pawtucket Avenue in Pawtucket, RI 02860. The entrance is Ann Mary St. You can tell from the photo there’s a hill at the entrance. Powell St. runs through where the theatre stood. The screen was behind where Chili’s sits now.
An article on the history of the location appears in The Providence Journal, August 12, 2012. It includes images of the Cycledrome that had been located there as well as a 1940 image of the drive-in’s entrance. Article with images.
This drive-in was open well into the 1970s, if it is the same one I am thinking of. It was on the Providence-Pawtucket line and alongside Route 95. My father used to take a carload of us to the drive-in between July 1973 through 1973 and I remember going here many times during that era. It must have closed in the 1970s, sometime after 1972.
I was in R.I. last weekend and was researching some of the films that I caught at the drive-in back then and going through Projo I saw ads for this drive-in in 1971.
Elias M. Loew 1898-1984 from Austria once owned 70 theatres and 17 drive-ins.He also owned the Bay State Raceway and a chain of hotels and motels, One being the Gulfstream Drive-in,which had a motel built on both sides of the screen of the drive,it has its own page on C.T.
E.M. LOEWS and LOEWS THEATRES were not the same company.
From Boxoffice magazine, August 21, 1954:
“E.M. Loew’s Drive-In was the site of the New England premiere of "Three Forbidden Stories."
[This Italian film was being marketed for its frank depiction of sexual woes. It also played serious art houses in New York and elsewhere.]
From Boxoffice Magazine, December 2, 1950:
“Whoever directs the policy for E.M. Loew’s open airers must be something of a weather prophet. Amost simultaneously with the closing of E.M. Loew’s Drive-In at the Providence-Pawtucket City line, winter weather hit this vicinity with the thermometer dropping to the middle twenties. All other nearby ozoners were still operating, despite the frigid weather, when Thanksgiving had come and gone.”
[Note: an “ozoner” is trade talk for any drive-in theatre.]
The Drive-In opened at 8 p.m. on July 21, 1937. Interestingly, the admission charge was per person, not per carload.
Providence Journal ad, 7/21/37 from Art in Ruins
The 1949 Film Daily Yearbook gave the capacity as 550 cars.
Appropriately enough, the E. M. Loew’s was showing the film Drive-In at the beginning of July, 1976. The second feature was The Lords of Flatbush.
In May of 1950, they had shown Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan. A neo-realist masterpiece is not what one would associate with a drive-in.
The Italian film Anna played here in May of 1953. It starred the luscious Silvana Mangano of Bitter Rice fame. Here she played a woman with a tainted past who decides to become a nun. There is a famous song/dance scene in the movie when Mangano sings “"El negro Zumbon,” a ‘bajon’ sung in Spanish that became a popular song hit even in America. The movie was dubbed for wider release, especially for drive-in showings such as this one. It had played the now-closed Carlton in Providence about a month earlier.
The exact date this drive-in opened was July 21, 1937…according to a 1948 Providence Journal Almanac entry.
The ads always said “Providence.” It was on the Providence side of the city line with Pawtucket. I too remember going to the Lonsdale Twin for some horror triple bill.
I don’t know if the Loew’s was in Pawtucket or Providence, but one other drive in — a twin I believe — was the Lonsdale Twin in Pawtucket.
I remember this drive-in well and it was open well into the 1970s. My family would go to the drive-in every Friday night in the early 1970s and I went with them in ‘71, '72 & '73. I know we went to the Loew’s many times. It was parallel to Route 95 on the Providence/Pawtucket line. I remember there was a Benny’s near the drive-in/highway. It was an old brick building and the back of Benny’s, which faced the highway, was painted white with Benny’s in bright red letters. I think the drive-in was between Benny’s and Route 95.
My memory is foggy, but I think some night there were actually triple-features. I also may have the drive-in wrong, but I think I saw a film here called “The Burglars,” which for some reason was one of those films that always stayed with me and a film I’ve always wanted to see again, but it never shows on TV and never came out on video/DVD. It stars Jean Paul Belmondo, Omar Shariff and Dyan Cannon. I don’t know how it will hold up, but I remember liking it. There is one scene where either Belmondo or Shariff punches one of those plastic clowns that is weighted on the bottom. You blow it up. I have no idea why I remember that one scene.
Interesting fact is that this was the site of the Providence Cycledrome in the 1920’s. The Cycledrome was a bicycle track/football field that was home to the NFL football Providence Steam Roller from 1925-1931. This team won the 1928 NFL Championship by tying the Green Bay Packers 7-7 in the last game of the season at this field. The Cycledrome was torn down in the 1930’s and replaced with Loew’s theater in 1937. This was one of the earliest drive-ins in the country. I visited the site in the early 1980’s, and remnants of the drive-in still remained. I distinctly remember the burned-out projection building was still there, though not much of anything else remained. I think there is a strip mall on the site now.