Holyrood Episcopal Church

William Oliver Embury, who served as chaplain of the nearby House of Refuge for Problem Girls, and was operated by the Episcopal religious order, the Community of St. Mary, in what is now Inwood Hill Park at a time when upper Manhattan was an area of country houses located beyond the edge of the city.

The area urbanized rapidly, and in 1910 the congregation began to plan a new, larger Gothic revival building at Fort Washington Avenue and 179th Street.

[1] The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020[2] and designated as a New York City landmark in 2021.

He came to Holyrood after his liberal positions on issues such as permitting black children from a nearby "Negro orphan asylum" led to his resignation from the pulpit of Christ Church (Bronx, New York) at the request of members of the vestry.

[4] In 2017 the church took a humanitarian position when it agreed to grant "sanctuary" to a Guatemalan refugee scheduled for deportation.