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The interior of an open-air moving-picture theatre built entirely of bamboo — a large screen surround with a sign reading BAMBOO-GARDEN AIR-DROME, PICTURES AND DANCING COMBINED, ONE ADMISSION, and two hundred empty slat-back chairs in rows on a plank floor

Inside the Bamboo Garden Air-Drome, c. 1920

ca. 1920

Highland Beach, foot of Sandy Hook

The open-air theatre, empty, before a show. The screen surround, the walls, the pillars and the roof edging are all built of bamboo laid in courses. The board mounted over the screen reads BAMBOO-GARDEN AIR-DROME · PICTURES AND DANCING COMBINED · ONE ADMISSION. Perhaps two hundred slat-back chairs stand in rows on a plank floor, with cafe tables among them at the back and canvas blinds rolled down along the far wall. An airdrome was an open-air moving-picture house, a form of the First World War years. Gateway NRA Museum Collection catalog

The Gateway NRA photograph and an AI-colorized reinterpretation

The interior of an open-air moving-picture theatre built entirely of bamboo — a large screen surround with a sign reading BAMBOO-GARDEN AIR-DROME, PICTURES AND DANCING COMBINED, ONE ADMISSION, and two hundred empty slat-back chairs in rows on a plank floor
A colorized photograph of the interior of an open-air moving-picture theatre built of bamboo, rendered as a night scene under a deep blue sky — the screen surround carrying a sign reading BAMBOO-GARDEN AIR-DROME, PICTURES & DANCING COMBINED, ONE ADMISSION, two hundred empty slat-back chairs in rows on a plank floor, and lit lamps over the cabanas at right

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Item record

Title
Inside the Bamboo Garden Air-Drome, c. 1920
Date
ca. 1920
Source
Gateway NRA Museum Collection #21890 · via the NPS Highland Beach research paper, 2005
Contributor
Gateway National Recreation Area Museum Collection
Rights
Public domain — created before 1929 and published without renewal; the National Park Service publishes the Gateway NRA Museum Collection as public domain.
Slug
hb-nps-airdrome-interior-c1920

Verification: unverified.

Cite this item

Inside the Bamboo Garden Air-Drome, c. 1920 (ca. 1920). Gateway NRA Museum Collection #21890 · via the NPS Highland Beach research paper, 2005 The Highlands History Project, https://history.abovethehook.com/archive/hb-nps-airdrome-interior-c1920/.