Workers prepare to begin razing the Bomes Theatre across from East Providence City Hall. Demolition is expected to begin tomorrow.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

EAST PROVIDENCE — The Bomes Theatre across from City Hall started coming down last week, when part of the structure fell to the street.

Beginning this morning, it will come down in earnest.

A demolition team will begin razing the old movie theater, which was built in the 1930s and had been a city landmark.

State Rep. Henry C. Rose, D-East Providence and Pawtucket, whose family owns the Bomes, said yesterday people were asking if they could have bricks from the building, which was also known as the Hollywood Theater.

He said there’s a lot of sentiment attached to the building.

“That’s the first time I kissed my wife, when I went to the Hollywood Theater,” he said.

Some will be happy to see it go.

“It’s been a thorn in our side for years,” said Allan Gilmore, chairman of the Downtown Business Association, who characterized it “as the biggest eyesore in the city,” made all the more embarrassing because it is directly across from City Hall.

The business community has been hoping to have the structure rehabilitated and, perhaps, turn it into a drawing card for the city.

But, Gilmore contended, the Rose family has not cooperative and the deterioration had become too great. “I guess the best thing to do is have it torn down.”

A house behind it had to be torn down about six months ago after it was abandoned and it burned down.

Rose said yesterday that there had been proposals for it, but none that seemed profitable.

Demolishing the building, he said, is “the right thing” to do before someone gets hurt. He said he was grateful there were no injuries when part of it came down last week.

“It is sentimental to a lot of people,” he said, adding that his wife has already asked for one of the bricks.

Rose said yesterday the last time it was used as a theater was in the early 1950s.

Then the family, which owns Rose Furniture, used it as a basement store, then as a storage facility. Then they just stopped using it altogether and it feel into disrepair.

“The traffic count was pretty good, but they killed a lot of retail business when they put in [Route] 195. That’s when they split the city up. The traffic count is probably one quarter of what it used to be,” he said.

Demolition will probably take a week, leaving about 20,000 square feet of prime commercial land, said Rose.

And he used the same phrase as Gilmore to describe the property.

“It’s been a thorn in our side,” he said. “The only way to do it is to clean it up.”

gemery@projo.com