While recently looking for a nice location for an afternoon hike with a friend, we stumbled across the remains of the Geneva 4 Drive-In movie theater in Daly City. What first caught my eye was three old lightbox signs atop polls with changeable marquee letters.
Cinema Treasures tells us that the Geneva was a 4 screen multiplex that opened in 1950 on an abandoned dog racing track. It had west facing screens positioned at the bottom of a gentle sloping grade with a mesmerizing view of the infamous aptly named Cow Palace. “Great place for taking dates in the 50′s and 60′s.” Apparently Hunter S. Thompson was a frequent visitor and wrote about his experiences there. One can only imagine the freaky shit that must have gone on during its 50-year history.
This required further investigation. We wandered around the grounds and soon discovered a cache of leftover marquee letters strewn about.
With darkness coming on fast, we quickly went about to use our collective Scrabble skills to come up with this solid 17 point word score.
I get the feeling this place doesn’t get a lot of visitors, as the marquees hadn’t been changed in over a year as evidenced by photos on the SF Gate’s The Poop blog.
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Eddie Codel is a live video streaming consultant, producer and videographer based in San Francisco. I make pictures move across the tubes. I am for hire.
links for 2009-11-12
November 12th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] Geneva 4 Drive-In Urban Scrabble (Eddie Codel) [...]
Telstar Logistics
November 12th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I'm proud to say that I saw “Showgirls” at this drive-in, circa 1995. The fact that it closed not long thereafter is surely a coincidence.
Chris
January 17th, 2011 at 5:30 am
I saw a double feature, one being Terminator 2 way back in the 90s. Also visited the flea market after that. I ended up taking all the plastic letters I don’t know why.
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February 2nd, 2012 at 11:33 pm
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