[4] In 1902, new residents of Stuyvesant Heights who were members of Congregation Shaare Zedek of New York organized a new English-speaking synagogue by the same name.

The new facility—which Shaari Zedek occupied until 1969 and is now a black church—included space for Shabbat services, Sunday school, a dance hall and a gymnasium.

[7] President Calvin Coolidge participated in the dedication by pushing a button at the White House that caused the new building's electric lights to illuminate.

[9] The congregation eventually became part of the Afro-American Orthodox Church, not aligned with the Anglican Communion, under the leadership of Archbishop Donald M. Forster, who was a founding member of St. Leonard's and its rector from 1950 until his death in 1975.

[9] According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, [w]hile St. Leonard’s Church made a few modifications to the former synagogue after acquiring it in 1944, the building retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.

Three identical tall, arched stained-glass windows sit directly above the entrance, linked as an arcade by cast stone capitals.

The plain eastern side, facing an accessibility ramp, features five bays with tall arched windows to the sanctuary's balcony.

At the end of the sanctuary, an ornamental arch frames a recessed area that housed the ark when the building was a synagogue.