This crumbling NJ landmark is sad, beautiful and unforgettable

Why is something so sad and ugly so beautiful to me?

I was in South Jersey to see a concert in Atlantic City over the weekend. At one point, I drove into Absecon to pick up some food for the room. On the way to Aldi, my eye was caught by the backside of what looked to be an old, dilapidated movie screen.

Jeff Deminski/Townsquare Media

Of course, I had to investigate. It stood just past the Home Depot. I found an old gravel and dirt road that was grown over along both sides. As I drove slowly down it I kept waiting to see a long-abandoned ticket booth or some kind of broken down entrance sign.

But there was nothing. Just this dirt road filled with potholes, I had to carefully navigate around that cut into an overgrown field. Greenheads immediately tried to invade my car and I had to put my window up.

Could this really be an old drive-in movie theater screen? Or was I just looking at the back of a very old billboard?

Then I saw it as the trees on the left gave way. Standing in what undoubtedly once was a paved lot with poles and speakers was this ancient throwback. What is left of an old outdoor movie screen still rises above a forgotten clearing as if waiting for everyone to come back.

 SEE ALSO: The Atlantic City most people don't get to see 

Jeff Deminski/Townsquare Media

Decades of vegetation and growth filled the lot where cars once sat, where teens made out, where families watched in pajamas. I later did some research and found out it was once the Absecon Drive-In. According to the Real Brigantine Facebook page, it opened June 11, 1955. It accommodated 1,000 cars and had golf next door and a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.

SEE ALSO: Why Montclair's Bellevue Theatre is a must-see cinema

Jeff Deminski/Townsquare Media

The Absecon Drive-in closed for good in 1983, but not before hitting hard times and showing porno films at the end of its run. Teens were said to hang out on nearby railroad tracks to catch an underage view.

According to some Facebook comments the screen was still mostly intact when Superstorm Sandy hit and took out part of it. There it still stands, almost defiant of the passing years. The audacity to still be there overlooking nothing is somehow sad and beautiful to me at once.

I guess it made me happy to see this battered thing still standing where so many fun memories had been made. It didn’t matter that some of its pieces were missing. Hell, so are some of mine.