They clang, they clash, they roar. Their clamorous peals can pierce a deep sleep or puncture a conversation.
The shrill ring of the bells of Grace Episcopal Church has shaken downtown Providence for generations, a clarion reminder of a historical landmark that is no less striking than the neo-Gothic structure’s towering brick steeple.
So whenever complaints about the clangor filter back to the church, they are heard, but not necessarily heeded.
“We say, ‘I’m sorry the bells disturb you; they’ve been ringing here in this neighborhood for over 150 years,’ ” said the Rev. Jonathan Huyck, rector of the church. “Essentially, the bells were here first.”
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Video: Clamor over the clangor
But Huyck and the church are hardly tone deaf to the auditory needs of their neighbors. This is clear from a compromise that Grace Episcopal Church has made with a boutique hotel that stands smack dab in the bells’ sonic ground zero, just across narrow Mathewson Street. Two years ago, at the rector’s request, the bell’s master grudgingly cut back the chiming from four times an hour to twice: on the hour and half past.
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