Town Drive-In Theatre

Info Updates:

12/31/2011 - ron besch

I remember the Town Drive in Theater in Redford. In the summer the residents along W. Chicago would sit in lawn chairs or on their porches and watch movies for free. After it closed it became a strip mall with Chatham Super Market, E. J. Korvette, McCrory variety store and Revco Drugstore.

2/20/2011 - linda grimm

i was born in 1957 and i understand that that both my mother(dolly) and a guy named (keith) worked there and i am their daughter. i'm just trying to find out any info i can on this guy keith. i would greatly appreciate if anyone has any info to fill in this missing piece in my life. thanks.

2/4/2011 - Frank

I lived on Dixie off of Plymouth Rd. I believe it was in November 1959 I seen cars, trucks, trailers and lots of people preparing to leave from the Town site, for Alaska. They were called the fifty- nine, ers. They were promised free land by our government.

1/25/2011 - Lynn

I lived on Riverpark and could lay on my bed upstairs and see the screen and watch the fireworks. Some of my fondest memories in the summer when it was hot and you couldn't sleep. We used to go there and I had some of my first dates going to the theater. I even remember going the night before my wedding. I really missed it when it was torn down.

9/5/2010 - Joe P

The Town caught fire while they were tearing it down for the new shopping center that held Korvette''s. A cutting torch ignited the building that held the screen tower. After the fire was extinguished, they attached a cable to the tower and pulled it down.

Every Friday night, there was a ''cartoon festival''. No matter what movie was playing, there were 5 or 6 cartoons before the main feature.

There was a train that went around the playground. Kids would fill the cars and it travel around the track to the delight of the children and parents - all for free!

The drive-in was sold in 1961.

7/8/2009 - Dan Nicholson

The town was still open in the early 60''s. I grew up on Arnold, my friends and I would always be able to see the fireworks and actually see movies from the Monkey Bars at The Kindergarten on the corner of our street.

10/6/2007 - Bobby Peacock

To Cliff: EJ Korvette did NOT stand for Eight Jewish Korean Veterans. Snopes says so.

I should also point out that the former Korvette''s is now a Burlington Coat Factory and some other stores.

9/15/2007 - Cliff Rockefellow

I was born in ''53 and my parents bought a new house on Crosley just N. of Joy in 1955. I remember looking out my bedroom window and seeing fireworks on holidays and my friends and I would climb up the elm tree so we could see the screen - it was a long ways away but I guess we were trying to see something "dirty" which I am sure was never played there - that would have been the early 60''s I think... we were good tree climbers! The best thing about the town drive-in was the wetlands behind it (wormer, Woodbine weren''t developed yet) and that''s where we went to catch polywogs! Those were the days...

E.J. Korvettes (Eight Jewish Korean Veterans) replaced the drive-in in the early 60''s and it was one hell of a fine department store in it''s prime... I bought all my LP''s there and slot-cars and... everything!

3/18/2007 - jim

I was born in 1958. The Town Drive Inn was operational for many years of my early life. We could see the fireworks from our backyard on Virgil Street. I remember seeing The Lady and the Tramp with my parents , brothers and sisters the the old blue Mercury Wagon. They knocked it down and put in E.J. Korvette''s.

7/2/2006 - Detroit Free Press

MAY 17, 2001 Thursday METRO FINAL EDITION In 1959, the Town Drive-In Theater in Redford Township meant more to the people living around it than to those who paid to drive inside. Up until 1962, the drive-in opened during Easter vacation and, if the spring twilights were exquisite, children straddled the cool, steel corner mailbox and watched Technicolor Woody Woodpecker cartoons. Then the movies, with titles like "The Angry Red Planet," "Experiment in Terror" and "Love in a Goldfish Bowl" starring Fabian, came on. The two neighbor girls and I never got to watch the entire movie; our parents called us indoors when it got too late. But the movies meant summer excitement for the children on West Chicago Road, even with the traffic noises from Telegraph all around. The neighbors knew one another well; many of the kids attended the same Catholic church (St. Hilary's), or public schools like Fisher Elementary and Thurston High. Many would reside on this block for the next 35 years. Our family of four knew the families on our block and their relatives like the backs of our hands. The houses on Wormer Street were not tract houses, but the five rooms on the first floor were all the same sizes and, architecturally, in the same positions in all the homes. There were plenty of playmates for me and my brother. Throughout the summers, after the first feature was shown at the drive-in, there often were fireworks shot into the night sky from the parking lot, like blessings over the big backyards where our neighbors sat, ate snacks and watched the dazzling explosions and brilliant hues. As the backyard hose ran all night to fill up our swimming pool, my brother and I sometimes ran up to the corner in the dark to get a better view with other children who might be out. On the Fourth of July, 1961, so many people from Livonia, Dearborn Heights and Inkster parked their automobiles along the block-length of the green steel drive-in fence, and stood on the corners of Wormer and Woodbine as well as on the lawns along West Chicago Road, that we thought the State Fair had opened. Of course, it wasn't the Fourth of July without this pyrotechnic brilliance up at the Town Drive-In. But it was especially wonderful when my father's sister, her husband and our three cousins came over, staying until 10 p.m. in the warm blackness between the brick houses, illuminated in emerald, gold and sapphire lights. Anthony Suder, a freelance writer and graduate of Michigan State University, has lived in the house on Wormer Street all his life. He is working on a novel about growing up in Detroit in the 1950s. He also delivers the Free Press part-time.

9/11/2004 - Dave

The date mentioned are mistaken. I was born in 1958, yet I recall seeing movies there, and I also recall when the Town burned. As best as I can discern from memory, it must have burned in the early 60s, closer to 1965 than 1960, however.

10/26/2003 - Jan

The movie Babes In Toyland was released in 1961 and I remember seeing it at the Town as a little girl. The drive-in burned shortly thereafter. One has to wonder how a drive-in can burn, but I distinctly remember seeing the huge, scorched screen as we would drive by. It was pretty spooky.

1/6/2003 - Drive-Ins.com

Built in the late 40s and closed in the late 50s. #1 grossing theater in the Detroit area while it was open. The drive in was replaced by a discount department store, E J Korvettes. The owners had planned on moving the theater across the street to a larger location, the original theater holding only about 1000 cars. They sold the drive in site before getting all permits to build on the new site. Needless to say, those permits were not granted and the larger Town Drive-In was never built." R. Fredrick

HomeDrive-In TheatersTown Drive-In Theatre - Redford, MI

Town Drive-In Theatre