Going to the Movies

Going to the Movies was very different in the past. You would look in the newspaper, in the Entertainment section, usually part C in the back of it and see all the adds for the movies, you'd find the movie you wanted to see and check out the time it started. You estimated how busy it would be and how early you would have to go to get on line to get a ticket. 
     I remember standing in line in New City to see a movie called, 'The In-Laws' with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin when it was a single screen theater in 1979. I was in a line so long that it stretched down the  southern side of the mall, past stores until it almost reached the road. We did get a seat and a pretty good one
     Back then only one Movie was shown in a theater on a given day, several times a day.The Screens were larger, the popcorns and drinks were less expensive, smaller and the sizes were a reasonable size, not something that would feed a family of four for a week. There were no Multiplex theatres,except in New York City, a life time away for me, but We had Drive Ins. 
    
DRIVE INs

Rockland had a fair share of Drive Ins in their heyday. There were two on Route 303 and the third was up in Monsey on Route 59. 
    I went to the one in Monsey only once, that I can remember, and it was weird to boot. My Friend Mike had asked me if I wanted to see a movie called 'Star Wars'. I'd never heard of it and I figured why not. The why not turned out that he had invited a girl that he wanted to get to know better, and I guess I was supposed to be the beard for the night. You know, back then if three people went to the movies, the girl would be safe, not gang raped. I think I might have been used as a way to reassure her parents that it would be safe to go.
     We get to the Drive In and park. I don't remember much about the night except for Mike commenting that I got back too quick from the refreshment stand. I don't think I enjoyed the movie.
     The Nyack Drive In and Route 303 Drive In were the two Drive Ins I went to the most. I remember as a little kid going in a packed car. You'd pay one price for a car full or at least less per person at the Drive In. You'd head down a long gravel road and the rocks would crunch under the wheels. At the roads end it would open up to row after row of cars parked next to short four foot poles and hung from each were two speakers. The speaker hung on the driver's window, with all the other windows open to the elements, because who had air conditioning then. You'd drive down a side isle then turn down a row until you found an open spot you liked. The Car would go up a slight incline to orientate itself to the screen. Everyone would decide on what they wanted to eat and off to the refreshment stand. Drive Ins had the usual movie fare. The one thing that struck me when I was the already fading glory of the Drive In. The Refreshment stand had several spaces where registers had been in the past. One lone register handled the crowd on that evening. I remember standing in line wondering when they would open the other registers, it was summer and if not now when? It was many years later when I realized the Drive Ins were dying a slow death. America's love affair with doing everything in your car was changing. Across the street form the Nyack Drive In and down the road towards Nyack was a restaurant called Stewarts' Root Beer. It was an other example of a place we would go to eat. We'd all pile into the car, pull up to a long awning, nosing the car in and I don't remember if We ordered from a speaker or if a waitress came over and took our order. When Stewarts' closed I should of known it wouldn't be long before the Drive Ins closed.
     I took my first serious girlfriend to the Drive In. We talked most of the night (yeah, we really did) and I lost the plot of the movie, I don't remember the movie.   
     I took another girlfriend to see Star Trek- the movie at the Drive In. At this movie there was more kissing and I also lost the plot of the film and didn't enjoy the movie, but I still enjoyed the night.
      The Drive Ins would close for the winter, mostly. During a few winters Nyack would try to stay open by showing triple X or porn This was back when there was no internet and you needed to make an effort to view it.  Driving by in the winter, with the leaves down you could see the screen. Every time I drove by it was a scene where they were talking.
     One Year, the Monsey Drive In didn't open. I didn't think about it. I rarely went there and I rarely went to a Drive In anyway.
      A few years later, I guess it was the middle 80's and VHS tapes were getting real big, neither Nyack or Route 303 opened. I remember feeling a little sad and nostalgic, but it had been years since I'd been to a Drive In.

Theatres
    I remember the thrill of walking into the theater in Pearl River in the 60's and 70's. Both Theaters are gone now. The one down toward the center of town I liked the best. You would walk in after paying for your ticket. There would be a long hallway that got dark as it got closer to the doors for the theater. On the left, set back a little way off the hall was the cencession stand. It was small and didn't take into account the future importance the dollars from selling food would bring. After getting pop corn and whatever you started up the hallway into the dark.I think you came to a set of doors then and after going through them and your eyes had become accustomed to the dark you would see hallway, left and right and two setsof stairs slightly behind you that would take you to the balcony, which more often then not would be closed. It was not an ancient theater, most likely it was built in the fifties when Rockland was still a one horse town and the bridge hadn't changed it from a resort community.
     The surprising thing, to me and maybe to you, Spring Valley used to be the economic hub of the county. You can see it in the number of movie houses in and around the area. There was the one in Hillcrest, were I first saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'd never laughed that much in my life. Now if you see it you might not understand how it was so funny. Humor is subjective and it was the right movie making fun of the right topic at the right time, the definition of humor.
     The next theater on Route 45 would of been the one in town. Growing up that was always an x-rated movie theater. I saw my first porn film there. I think it was 'The Devil in Miss Jones', I could be wrong. It was a double feature The second movie, equally memorable, the title has been lost had characters called Peter the great and the great Peter. I'll let you surmise what they refer to.
      Coming to Route 59, and going west you would reach the Rockland Drive In. It alway seemed to have been the most successful of the three. It even had a sign, lit by neon on the side of 59 announcing you were only one mile from it. The Sign should of ened up in the Rockland Museum. Two problems with that, The first there was no Rockland Museum then and the sign was destroyed during a road widening in the 80's.
     The Spring Valley area had three theaters, Pearl River had two and Nyack also had two. The one on North Broadway, never had any parking. It might of been a real old, and beautiful theater, I only vaguely remember going there as a kid in the early 60's. One is now an Apartment complex. The other theater in Nyack, I'm not too sure where it was. The one theater I went to a lot in the 70's and 80's was on the corner of..... and Main Street, it was new. opened in the 70's, I think. I saw Alien there and it was the location of the midnight Rocky Horror Picture show for at least ten, fifteen years. In all that time, I never went to it. It was just too weird.People would go dressed up as characters from the film and echo lines as the Movie played. If you want to know what it was like, see the movie Fame, made in the 80's. It has an extended scene about what it was like to go to the show.
     The Theater in Suffern, I went rarely to. It is the grandest theater still around in the area, as of 2017. It can trace its' history to the silent era. It even hosted live shows and Vaudeville, I think. For a while in the 90's the theater would play the pipe organ before shows. It was fun.
      Multiplex's started showing up in the county in the 90's. The first one was in the Spring Valley Market place just off Route 59 on Clarkstown Road. It was fun and a bit of an adventure at first. Then the movies opened up in the new Palisades Mall and theaters began to close and the prices took a steep rise. Around 2000, the price of a ticket was $7.50 and I was complaining about the price jump from $6.00 in Spring Valley, which had closed. By 2015 the price of a ticket at the Mall had risen to $12.95. Now there is talk about adjustable pricing depending on the popularity of the film.
     The price of refreshment had shy rocketed. A large drink and a bucket of pop corn started at $9.00, a pricey sum in 2000. In 2015 over $12.00.
     Life goes on and going to the movies has changed by shades. It was no easier to get a ticket at a perceived reasonable price in 1980, then it is today. I liked multiplexes at the start. I see them now as a dilution in the quality of the theater experience. Smaller screens, over sized drinks and pop corn. It's a drive to push people to consume and we do, more and more. The sizes of everything compared to what is normal has been so warped that went we see normal, it looks cheap and insubstantial. 

     Now $60.00 for six months we can go to the movies as often as once a day, if We want. I hope it doesn't go out of business at least until we get to use it a couple of time. I got two passes. One for her for six months and a second for me for a year for $89.00.






k