By the early 1900s the area was known for newspaper publishing (The New York Herald) and theaters (The Metropolitan Opera House (39th St)).

Rosenstein built a twenty-storey storage and loft building at 135-9 West 36th Street to designs by the eminent Emery Roth.

Holy Innocents is the only parish church in the Archdiocese of New York to still offer a daily Mass according to the 1962 missal.

The interior is noted for the high altar of white marble that is surmounted by a fresco of the Crucifixion by Constantino Brumidi.

The Church has twenty stained glass windows from Munich; however subsequent building in the area has somewhat dimmed the interior.

[14] According to a popular account, one day, artist Charles Bosseron Chambers stopped by Holy Innocents for Mass.

In later speaking to the man, Chambers learned that he was a Frenchman who had drifted away from religion since coming to New York, but was now heading back to fight in World War I, and had prayed for a return to the faith.

Chambers produced an oil painting from the sketch,[9][16] which was subsequently "...reproduced by one of the largest publishing companies in color and sepia, and [had] decided success.