The Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church stands at 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, New York City.
It was taken over by the Franciscans in 1990. The parish has an attached elementary and middle school, as well as a community center on West 97th Street.
The current Pastor of Holy Name Parish is Father Daniel Kenna, OFM, replacing Father Francis X. Gunn, OFM. The associate friars or parochial vicars are Father Lawrence Ford, OFM, Father Michael McDonnell, OFM, and Father Gonzalo Torres, OFM.
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The Church of the Holy Name of Jesus was organized in 1868 in the area then known as Bloomingdale.[1] A wood-frame church was erected on the northwest corner of Bloomingdale Road (now called Broadway) and 97th Street.[2]
Thomas Henry Poole designed the present Gothic Revival church, located at 740 Amsterdam Avenue at 96th Street, which was built in stages from 1891 to 1900. The steeple was added in 1918. The large interior is noted for its hammer-and-beam ceiling, stained glass windows, terrazzo floor, and beautiful marble altars.
In 1997 the church suffered damage when the air compressor in the organ caught fire during a noon mass. The church took the opportunity to renovate, which was finished in 2000.
Holy Name has taken a leading role in addressing social justice issues on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Under the direction of Fr. Mike Tyson, the church had sponsored numerous petitions and took a leading role in closing a zoning loophole that a land developer had exploited in order to build two large condominium towers. Holy Name also organizes an interfaith March for Peace every year on Martin Luther King, Jr Day, along with several Lutheran and Episcopal Churches and several synagogues and is the epicenter of the organization West Siders for Peace.
Complaints about excessive noise: Since April 24, 2011, the church started to ring their bells bell/chiming system every 15 minutes, becoming a real nuisance to the neighborhood. On April 29, 2011 the church rang the bell/system all night. Since then it started on a 30 minutes basis, continuing to become a continuous horrible nuisance to the entire neighborhood. The chiming system goes off every 30 minutes on the half hour and on the hour, playing the same music over and over, and gonging the time on the full hour, Monday through Saturday, and on Sundays, several times a day, without being hour related. The church wakes people up, and on holidays it gongs for 15 minutes, continuing the nuisance all day. Numerous complaints have been made to Community Board 7 which claims to have actively pursued the matter, however, the church along with its Parish Vicar have brushing off, including denying the very existence of the 30 minute clocking. At the same the time that they deny the frequency, they say that the gonging system is working to remind people of the existence of god and that the church has been getting donations from non-christians due to the beauty of the gonging system. Despite all activity from city council and Community Board and resident complaints, they continue, waking residents up on a daily basis at the time they find fit to pray, in blatant disrespect to others schedule and needs in a city like New York where many people work at night and have small dwelling units upsetting even Catholic parishioners. No complaints have been to avail that they stop such nuisance and let the neighborhood be back in peace and quiet. The pastor of the church has stated that the police, fire department and ambulances are the ones that bother them.