WHJJ/WHJY Broadcast Center Is Demolished

WHJJ/WHJY Broadcast Center Is Demolished

It is gone. The WHJJ/WHJY Broadcast Center was once the home for the biggest names in radio, when radio was big business in Rhode Island.

Now, it has been demolished.

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For decades, the broadcast center in East Providence was one of the hubs of Rhode Island media. Then, it became an abandoned ghost building that became the backstage for viral videos.

In its prime, the broadcast center was home to everyone from AM talk radio icons Sherm Strickhauser, Buddy Cianci, and Arlene Violet. On the FM side, it was Paul and Al, Carolyn Fox, Rudy Cheeks and Janet “From Another Planet” Bates. 

It was where DJs Fox and Cheeks shocked. Candidates for governor debated. It hosted visits from some of the biggest names in rock and roll coming to hype their latest album. 

A GoLocal review of the building in October had found garbage spewed across the parking lot and signs on the building warning of asbestos.

History

“I did talk shows on WHJJ-AM and worked with Carolyn [Fox] on WHJY-FM on Eastern Avenue in East Providence. I worked on HJJ there with the great Sherm Strickhouser. He was my radio mentor,” said Bruce McCrae — aka, Rudy Cheeks -- a member of the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame. 

“One morning Carolyn (Fox) & I had coffee with Ozzie Osbourne. That was funny. I always liked when John Hiatt would drop by. When Dee Snider from Twisted Sister came in, he told me my uncle Allister was his high school gym teacher in Long Island,” said McCrae

The broadcast center was left vacant -- and for the last three years, it has been owned by one of the largest private telecom infrastructure owners and operators in the U.S.  — Vertical Bridge of Boca Raton, Florida.

Just across an open field is a residential neighborhood of neatly kept homes, with families living in raised ranches and older smaller colonial houses. some dating back to the 1890s.

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