[1] In 1909, in an effort to meet the spiritual needs of the newly arrived Polish inhabitants of the west side of Manhattan, Cardinal John Farley, the Archbishop of New York, authorized the founding of a new parish to serve them.

[2] The decision was made to place the new parish under the spiritual patronage of a newly canonized saint with strong ties to Poland, Clement Mary Hofbauer, C.Ss.R., who had been canonized earlier that same year.

Subsequent services were held in a rented Lutheran church, until Letrenche was able to purchase four adjacent lots on West 40th Street, at the corner of Tenth Avenue.

Ground was broken and a four-story parish building was constructed, designed by Fred Schwartz, an architect based in Paterson, New Jersey.

[2] With the gradual change of neighborhood demographics to a more affluent population in the mid-20th century, the congregation dwindled to the point where the parish was closed by the archdiocese by 1970.