W & S Drive-In
9294 Warwick Road
"Across from the Park", Newport News, VA

THEN:	NOW:
1953 Anchor, p. 185	Sunday, January 9, 2005
Courtesy of Tom Norris (HHS - '73) of VA - 01/08/05 Thanks, Babe!	W&S Drive-In was indeed located across from the Park ... in this case, Huntington Park. The street address from the 1960 City Directory was 9294 Warwick Road. Warwick Road was described as an extension of Virginia Avenue. Apparently Virginia Avenue had not been renamed Warwick Boulevard. As you might suspect, the site is now vacant ... as in empty ... as in bulldozed. Bummer. Once I located the site, I knew at once that there had been a full sized restaurant there in the mid-60s, most likely an expansion of W&S. I should have returned to the Hilton Library to find the name, but a little voice is telling me "Ranch House", so I will go with that hunch. Surely another subscriber will confirm or correct me. The image was taken across Warwick Boulevard with my back to Huntington Park. I parked my car where the Drive-In might have stood. The structure at the left at 9296 was listed in the 1960 Directory as the Atlantic Building, but I could find no existing signage to that effect. - Dave Spriggs ('64) and his Wonder Camera of VA - 01/09/05 WOWZERONI!!!  Thanks so much, Dave!

9294 IS the Ranch House address!!!!!!
(from the 1966 cross reference city directory)
Dave's reference to Warwick Road as an extension of Virginia Avenue is correct ..
the 1960 directory still had some old references from the City of Warwick that were not yet updated

- Tom Norris (HHS - '73) of VA - 01/09/05
Thanks, Babe!

In trying to determine the exact location of the W & S before Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA pinned it down,
I asked Ron Miller ('59) of NC if he remembered it.  I received this response from him this afternoon:

Yup! It finally came to me Sunday afternoon.
Used to take dates there, then go watch the submarine races near Red's Pier.
(I guess the reason that I didn't remember it sooner was that I was more interested in the submarine races
than the name of the drive-in ;-).  I don't have any problem remembering the races! )

- Ron Miller ('59) of NC - 01/10/05

   WILD GIGGLES!!! 
Well, the more important facts do tend to remain with us more clearly, don't they?!? 
Thanks, Ronnie!

...The mention of 'drive-ins' in your latest newsletter caused me to remember that there were two distinctly different kinds
of drive-ins on the Peninsula 'way back when. The park-n-whatever movie theatres - and the meet, eat and greet kind.
In the 50's, there were three (now all long gone) that I can recall that were popular with the high school set: Monty's
(4309 Virginia Avenue), the B. & M. Drive-in (3716 Kecoughtan Road) and the W&S (across from the old entrance
to Huntington Park). Considered the 'territory of NNHS, HHS and WHS, respectively....

W&S - that one I know. Co-owned by two NN businessmen named Wertheimer and Stone. Edgar Wertheimer also
owned and operated a men's clothing store in Hilton - rival of The Young Men's Shop and Spigel's College Shop
in downtown NN. I'm not sure what else Mr. Stone did, but one of his children - Mary Sue - was yet another member
of WHS - Class of 1954. Not that it did any of us any 'discount' good at the W&S...

- Bill Lee (Warwick HS - '54) of NC - 06/15/06
Thanks, Bill!

(This page added 01/08/05.)

Back to All Peninsula Drive-Ins

Back to Our Old Stomping Grounds

Return to NNHS Class of 1965