From the archives: Oyster Bay OKs razing LI's last drive-in

This article was originally published in Newsday on Nov. 18, 1998

Five years after it first received an application to close the Westbury Drive-In in Jericho, the Town of Oyster Bay has finally waved the white flag in its battle to keep the old theater open.

The last shows had already played on the Westbury's three towering screens the weekend of Oct. 25. On Nov. 10, the town board voted to issue a demolition permit for the last drive-in on Long Island, the final legislative step to its demise.

The permit was issued in accordance with a state Court of Appeals ruling that thwarted years of town legal efforts to block construction of a multiplex theater and discount warehouse on the 23-acre site.

"The court has spoken and the court's determination is overriding," Supervisor John Venditto said, acknowledging the fight had long appeared headed for such a conclusion.

He said that over the past several summers he made a point of visiting the drive-in, which opened in 1951.

Westbury owner Howard Hogan Jr., a former town board member who recused himself from votes on the matter in 1993, said yesterday he was "disappointed to a certain extent that the decision took so long.

"The tragedy is that the town lost . . . revenues and taxes and jobs," by fighting the new construction, Hogan said. "But that's behind us now and it's time to be very positive about the decision," he said.

Hogan said he hoped ground could be broken by March on a 14-screen, 3,000-seat United Artists theater and a BJ's Wholesale Club warehouse planned for the site. Managers of United Artists say their building will be completed by the Christmas movie season, 1999.

In January, John Giordano, Farmingdale Village clerk and a drive-in historian, submitted an application to save the drive-in under town landmark protection laws. Yesterday he called the demolition decision heartbreaking and said he would lobby county officials and private developers to resurrect a shuttered drive-in at Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury. County planning officials could not be reached to comment on that plan.

Hogan used a team of historians and architects to beat Giordano's landmarks application and convince a majority of landmarks commissioners that the Westbury's layout was not unique. Whatever historical value the theater had was lost with a 1979 expansion, Hogan's experts said.