Welcome to our jewel on East Forty-Seventh Street, located on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, between First and Second Avenues. The Church of the Holy Family is a place that draws people of many nations into its heart of prayer and peace.

The present church, designed by architect George J. Sole, was dedicated on March 14, 1965 by His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman to serve the residents of the Turtle Bay area and to serve the spiritual needs of the United Nations Community.

Some forty years prior to that dedication, Father de Nonno, seeking to provide for the spiritual care of the Italian colony in the neighborhood, established the Church of the Holy Family on this site in a building which had previously been a stable. Today, some fifty percent of the original stable still exists in our present edifice. It is indeed a fitting foundation for a church dedicated to the spirit of the family of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, whose birth took place in the humble shelter of a stable.

On October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI held an ecumenical meeting in the church, marking the first occasion of a reigning pope to visit a parish church in the Western Hemisphere. On the west side of the church entrance, above the cornerstone, is the plaque commemorating the visit.