[3] The former parish of St. Stephen was administered by the Order of Friars Minor from its founding in 1922 until its merger with St. Joseph's in 2015.

The congregation was established in 1902 by Lászlo Perényi, a Catholic priest from Hungary to serve the growing immigrant population from that country in the city.

Growth in the parish led to plans to build a new church and school in 1927 in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, which became a center for several Central European ethnic groups, most notably German and Hungarian.

Plans were filed for a three-story brick church and school (both with basement and tile roofs) in 1926 to designs by Joseph H. McGuire of 5 Columbus Circle at a cost of $240,000.

[1] According to the AIA Guide to NYC (Fifth Edition, 2010), the Romanesque Revival church was built (or at least completed) in 1928 to the designs of a different architect, Emil Szendy.