Urban Exploring: Abandoned and Interesting Places
My sister and her husband had a car. This was rare in my family. My Mother didn’t drive so we depended on buses, taxis or walking. Back then the bigger the car the cooler you were. I can’t remember what she drove but I know it had to be huge. On the weekend, my sister, her husband, their three boys, my mother and me piled into that car and went to the Brookfield Drive-In to see a movie.
It was a real treat! I was ten years old when it opened in 1973. The lot could hold over 600 cars and there were nights it was filled to capacity. The cost of a movie was $1.75 - $3.50 a person and many will tell you they hid in the trunk of their friend’s car to avoid the cost of a ticket.
The canteen was the hub of excitement at the drive-in. You would never know who you would see there. It really was the place for families to see and be seen. They served popcorn in huge buckets, delicious corn dogs and pop. The food was the best part.
We drove up to the speaker pole and pulled the old fashioned speaker head inside the widow and watched movies dressed in our pajamas cuddled under a big old blanket gnawing on hot buttered popcorn and treats.
Those days are gone now. Buried under Alder Bushes and abandoned in a large field off Tobin’s Road, the Brookfield Drive-In is no more. The large screen blew down during one of Newfoundland’s famous wind storms in 1992. By that time every family had a VCR and watched movies at home anyway.
Today the remains are still behind the Old Mill Night Club on Brookfield Road. You take a left on Tobin’s Road and drive to the top. You’ll see big boulders to stop you from driving in. Look for the old road and you will have to walk a short distance to see the remains of the ticket booth. Once inside you’ll have to use your imagination or your memories to put everything back in place.
I stood on the concrete platform that was once the canteen and looked out into the overgrown field. When I closed my eyes I could still smell the hot buttered popcorn and corn dogs. I could hear my mother calling “Come on the movie is about to start.” We would run across the lot, in the cool night air, lost, looking for the car. My brother-in-law would flash the lights to remind us where we were parked and we would run towards it laughing, spilling a popcorn trail along the way.
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