At the Drive-In

You can see it from the road, clear as day, when the leaves are gone. It’s right off the side of the road after the highway exit.

It just sits there.

I drive by an old drive-in movie theater in Albion often. By the road, there’s a pair of old abandoned houses, with a drive next to them that leads to the drive-in.

The drive-in concession stand sits way back in the weeds, surrounded by a rotting wooden fence. The speaker poles are still out there – an invisible grid to a long-ago torn down screen.

As soon as the snow melted, I ventured out there to see what it was all about.

Years ago, the drive-in did pretty well. It drew in people from all over, thanks to its handy interstate location. But then things took a downturn, and the drive-in had to specialize. What did it pick?

Porn. Of course.

And much like anything else, you know you’re on the downturn when you resort to smut. So the drive-in closed. And rotted. And the screen was torn down and turned into scraps.

One story says that cars would pull over on the side of the highway to watch the on-screen smut. So the drive-in owners installed spotlights to shine into the roadway, blocking the view.

Now, there’s no shining. It’s all dark. The snow is melting, and everything is dripping and peeling.

photography abandoned, albion, drive-in, drive-in movie theater, michigan, urban exploration, urbex