Price of progress
Money splits a family, and an icon gives way to commerce

“Other historians and the general public may not feel (drive-ins are) as serious as forts or wars, but I think they’re just as valid to explore.” — Western Pennsylvania author and historian Brian Butko

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Just east of McKeesport, until the late 1990s, at one of the highest points in Allegheny County, sat a sight to warm the heart of anyone who ever snapped his fingers to a be-bop record or gazed lustfully at a '58 Thunderbird.

Greater Pittsburgh Drive-In Theater should have never lasted until the Clinton administration. Five - count 'em, five - operating drive-in movie screens showing first-run movies; a miniature golf course; a snack bar offering all sorts of drippy, greasy treats.

All of this was cleanly and professionally run by the Warren family, led by Marty Warren, a developer who inadvertently became a drive-in baron while looking to find uses for old strip mines and other "worthless" property. The Blue Dell Drive-In and Pool near Irwin was his; so was the adjacent Belair (as was, a reader recently told me, the South Hills on Route 51).

The Greater Pitt was the last of a string of "Warren Enterprises" theaters in the Pittsburgh area. These stories, written two years apart, tell the story of its improbable success and its untimely demise.

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May 23, 1996: Drive-in survives, despite the odds

March 28, 1998: Tears flow as drive-in demolition begins

A partial list of Pittsburgh-area drive-ins

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May 23, 1996

Mon Valley drive-in survives, despite the odds

By Jason Togyer
(this article appeared in a slightly different form in Pittsburgh City Paper)

For a while it seemed as if WQED's Rick Sebak would have to add another victim to his list of Things That Aren't There Anymore. Luckily, rumors of the demise of the Greater Pittsburgh Drive-In Theater have been greatly exaggerated.

When Troy, Mich.-based Kmart Corp. was scouting locations for a new Super Kmart, they called Joe Warren, whose family owns the landmark five-screen outdoor theater on Route 30 in North Versailles, just outside McKeesport.

It wasn't the first time someone had inquired about buying the property - the Gimbels department store chain tried in the 1960s when it was looking for a site for the nearby Eastland Mall. So did Hills. Even the Hearst Corp. came calling when it was looking for a home for WTAE-TV in the `50s.

"It was Kmart that was looking. We weren't for sale," said Warren, who's been inundated by requests for interviews. "It was no 'done deal' like some papers reported. We've never had a for sale sign out in all these years."

Drive-in fans will be happy to hear that the Kmart deal has died like the others. The company's recent financial troubles have squashed its expansion plans, depriving East Hills consumers of the chance to browse 20 acres of lawn-care products, but saving the Greater Pitt for another summer.



	July 21, 1969 ad

It's the kind of happy ending that's becoming rare. Each year the list of active drive-ins grows smaller, the victim of changing lifestyles and developers looking for flat real-estate near major highways. The Super 71 near Belle Vernon was the latest casualty; it's being replaced by a Wal-Mart.

Brian Butko of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania notes that drive-ins were invented in the 1930s, but the idea didn't take off until after World War II. They hit their peak in 1958, and their numbers declined until last year.

Then several closed drive-ins reopened, including two in the Pittsburgh area - the Galaxy in Vandergrift and the Comet near Mount Pleasant. There are about a dozen in the seven-county metropolitan area, a far cry from the days when more than 40 lit up the skies of Allegheny County alone.

"Most of the surviving drive-ins are family-owned now," Butko said. "The chains got out of it, because they bought into multiplexes and sold their land."

"That `s really what drove drive-ins away - the multiplexes," said documentary filmmaker Sebak. "It's great to see there are still survivors. I guess some people look at it as nostalgia, but it's not nostalgia, it's still going on. (The Greater Pitt) is not a relic, it's a thriving business, and Joe Warren wants to keep it going."

Sebak, who grew up within sight of the fondly-remembered South Park Drive-In, said he's "totally a drive-in baby. When I was a kid, we didn't see a movie that wasn't at the drive-in. I didn't know there was any other way to see movies."

The South Park was one of the oldest outdoor movie theaters in the country, one of only six in the United States built before the war. Sebak also has found memories of the nearby Fairgrounds Drive-In, where he and his friends went to see what he called "silent movies."

"From certain people's back porches, you could see the screen," he said. Both Sebak and Butko feel that drive-ins illustrate broader trends in American business and culture. "It was one of those post-war phenomenons that helped define America at that time," Sebak said. "I think it all revolves around our fascination with cars and movies. It's an all-American fascination."

"It's an extension of the reason that people like automobiles," Butko said. "It's the American dream, the freedom to do what you want—sleep, eat, make out, whatever."

Butko said he loves drive-ins, and as a historian, he takes them seriously. "Other historians and the general public may not feel they're as serious as forts or wars, but I think they're just as valid to explore."

But aren't they just a throwback to a distant age, viable only for nostalgia purposes?

"I'm confident of the opposite," Butko said. "They may still fade here and there, but overall, the concept is a pretty good one."

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It may have been a good concept, but the 1996 reprieve was only temporary. After Marty Warren's death, the property was split five ways. Joe Warren and his mother, Fran, didn't hold the majority, and the other family members finally got the offer they were waiting for. The resulting battle for control of the site left the family deeply divided.

And it broke Fran Warren's heart; she felt betrayed, not just by the other property owners, but also by the politicians who fast-tracked the development of the site. She attended a meeting of the North Versailles commissioners to blast them for continuing to say the drive-in's demise was "a done deal."

A year later, what was then reportedly the largest Wal-Mart in the United States stood in the theater's place.

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March 28, 1998

Tears flow as drive-in demolition begins

By Jason Togyer
(this article appeared in a slightly different form in The Daily News, McKeesport)

The giant movie screen lay on the ground, its twisted metal braces bringing to mind the old Wild Mouse roller-coaster at White Swan Park.

But there was little festive about the mood at Greater Pittsburgh Drive-In Theater, where demolition of the landmark's five screens began yesterday.

"I've been crying all morning," said Fran Warren of North Versailles, who with her son, Joe, owned about 37 percent of the 44-year-old outdoor playhouse. Three other family members own the rest of the operation, however, and developers have had their eyes on the valuable tract of land for years.

The latest plans call for a Sony multiplex movie theater—the "indoor" kind—a Wal-Mart and other retail outlets to be built at the site along Route 30.

The developer is James R. Aiello of Pittsburgh, who introduced Kmart to the area in the 1960s. Indeed, a Super Kmart store was proposed for the property, but the plan fell through.

Lawyers for both sides were expected to close the sale yesterday, but North Versailles Township Commissioner Edward McGuire said the deal had hit a slight stumbling block. It is expected to go through Monday; terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

He and other officials have noted in the past the shopping plaza will mean more jobs and increased tax revenue and development near Great Valley shopping center. They hope to hold a groundbreaking for the Wal-Mart store in mid-April, McGuire said.

Thus Joe Warren; his brother, Jim; drive-in employees and friends began the sad task of dismantling the fencing and screens. Projection and public-address equipment have already been removed.

It fell to Carl Remly of North Versailles, whose wife, Wannita, worked at the drive-in for 10 years, to cut up the 120-by-75 foot Screen No. 1 with an acetylene torch.

No. 1 was, of course, the first screen installed at the site, though the steel-framed structure demolished yesterday replaced a wooden screen that stood in the same place. Remly said he didn't have No. 1's braces cut all the way through when the wind and the screen's weight broke the last column and toppled it.

Warren, who had been planning to videotape the fall of Screen No. 1, didn't even have time to aim the camera.

"When I heard it crack, I just froze," said Warren, who saw the original blow apart in a windstorm when he was a child.

"We thought we'd have this planned just right," Remly said. "My wife said, 'Don't let it go down `til we're over there."

Her request was to no avail.

"It just snapped," Remly said.



Carl Remly cuts apart Screen No. 1 at the Greater Pittsburgh Drive-In Theater in North Versailles. (Wade H. Massie photo, used by permission.)

Remly received the day off from his regular job as a carpenter at the Ramada Inn, downtown Pittsburgh, to tear down the screen.

"It takes how long to build this, but it takes a day to tear it down," he said. "You're taking down a piece of history, if you know what I mean."

He expected it to take about two days to dismantle the screen, and said that was by far the most time-consuming part of the job.

"Now the fun part begins," he said, slicing off another galvanized steel panel. No. 2 screen, at the northern end of the site, near Greensburg Pike, will likely fall Saturday or Sunday.

"One way or another, I'm glad it's over," Warren said of the endless speculation and struggles over the sale of the property. He had worked at the drive-in -- one of several built in the Pittsburgh area by his late father, Marty -- his entire life.

"The (township) commissioners kept saying, 'It's a done deal,'" said Fran Warren. "I said, 'It's a done deal when we say it's a done deal.'

"I guess it's a done deal now," she said, watching Remly cut apart the screen. "It was three against two. We couldn't outwit them."

Sandy Schuler of North Versailles, a drive-in employee for five summers until being injured in an auto accident, was there with Fran Warren to watch the progress.

Schuler said she did "a little bit of everything" at the drive-in.

"That's the one thing about here," she said. "Everybody pitched in. It was like a family."

"She was one of our better workers," Fran Warren added.

Also on hand was the Greater Pitt's last assistant manager, Bill Hartley, an 18-year veteran.

"He's been everything from soup to nuts here," Warren said.

Pittsburgh was once a hub of drive-in activity and Greater Pitt was one of six outdoor theaters on Route 30 between the George Westinghouse Bridge and the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Irwin. Over the years, as their numbers thinned, Greater Pitt became a novelty and crowds began to grow. The Warrens added the fifth screen and a miniature golf course several years ago.

Fran Warren said the fact that Greater Pitt had been thriving in recent years hurt her the most.

The theater's demise leaves the closest drive-ins in Moon Township, Latrobe and near Brownsville.

Fran Warren said she was planning to take a trip to visit the Moonlite Drive-In near Brookville, owned by a former Greater Pitt employee who also recently reopened the Galaxy Drive-In in Vandergrift.

"He's doing real good," she said.

Still, there's light at the end of the tunnel, and it may be coming from a projector. The Greater Pitt's equipment is safely stored away, Joe Warren said, and he hopes to find a site in the area to open a new drive-in soon. "I don't have anything nailed down yet," he said.

He doubts he'll be able to open a theater before the summer's out.

"But you never know," Warren said.

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Epilogue:

Joe Warren called me later that afternoon when a woman exiting a car wash slammed into the drive-in's marquee, which was decorated with three shiny globes at the top.

Daily News Photographer Wade Massie and I hotfooted back up to the drive-in again in time to see the cops clearing away the wreckage of the car. Jim Warren said he and Joe were getting ready to "neuter" the marquee.

"Pardon me?" I said.

"We're cutting its balls off," Jim Warren said.

The township held its groundbreaking in April 1998. It was a staged event held in the parking lot of the neighboring shopping center, complete with ersatz dirt scattered on the blacktop. Construction of the Wal-Mart had already begun weeks earlier.

The Warrens have since reopened a closed drive-in near Scottdale. You can't keep a good man down -- so pile the kids or your sweetheart into the car and hit the road!