Yesterday, our lovely
Orange correspondent and I were on a Modern architecture pilgrimage to the
Crystal Cathedral campus in
Garden Grove, and unexpectedly stumbled across the last remaining bits of the
Orange Drive In Theatre. Not that they were marked or identified in any way, but it wasn't hard to figure out.
Dr. Robert Schuller began his ministry in Southern California in 1955 by preaching to folks in their cars at the Drive-In. His pulpit was the
roof of the snack shop, a portion of which was
apparently saved in 2003, when the rest of the building was bulldozed. (The screens came down earlier, in 1997. The whole area is now part of a freeway
onramp/
offramp.)
Also saved for posterity were these speakers, which are designed to mount on the inside of your car window during the movie (or during the drive-in church service). There was also an organ, mysteriously unmarked, nearby. I'm not sure what its origins were. Perhaps it was used at the Drive-In also.
In any case, all this stuff, and a rotary telephone, are on display on the second floor of the
Richard Meier-designed
International Center for Possibility Thinking (a.k.a. the "Welcoming Center").
Yesterday, our lovely Orange correspondent and I were on a Modern architecture pilgrimage to the Crystal Cathedral campus in Garden Grove, and unexpectedly stumbled across the last remaining bits of the Orange Drive In Theatre. Not that they were marked or identified in any way, but it wasn't hard to figure out. Dr. Robert Schuller began his ministry in Southern California in 1955 by preaching to folks in their cars at the Drive-In. His pulpit was the roof of the snack shop, a portion of which was apparently saved in 2003, when the rest of the building was bulldozed. (The screens came down earlier, in 1997. The whole area is now part of a freeway onramp/offramp.)
Also saved for posterity were these speakers, which are designed to mount on the inside of your car window during the movie (or during the drive-in church service). There was also an organ, mysteriously unmarked, nearby. I'm not sure what its origins were. Perhaps it was used at the Drive-In also.
In any case, all this stuff, and a rotary telephone, are on display on the second floor of the Richard Meier-designed International Center for Possibility Thinking (a.k.a. the "Welcoming Center").
