Sunset


Othello


A landmark on the ride between Seattle and Washington State University, in Pullman. Back home by 1988, all the old drive-in graveyards were built over. Out here in Eastern Washington, drive-ins die and just stay there. The Sunset and its weed-filled lot stood abandoned at least from 1988 to 1998.

I finally stoped to examine the place in 1998. I remembered the screen partially rotten away ten years earlier, but now a slightly newer wood screen with peeling paint was up, so it almost seemed like they tried to revive it in the intervening years.

Nothing else seemed new. Just as I entered the lot, past the ticket booth, pigeons started streaming out of the snack bar, knowing they had to start leaving early to all be out by the time I got there. They just barely made it. The building walls were almost completely rotted out, and at the back of the building I could see where a staircase used to be, until it was apprearantly removed as a nuseance. One projector was lying on the ground...


(Note the Maltese cross device in the lower photo. This device is the same shape as the intermitant which is used for stepping film for projection, but this object is too big for that.)

...and the other was still in place in the booth.


By April 2000 the attractive nusiance central building had been demolished, but the rubble and projector was left in place.

Microsoft Terraserver Satellite Image of Sunset Drive-in.


USGS Othello, 1954 and 1979

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