St. Monica's Catholic Church was established in the late 1830s as a mission church of St. Paul's (Brooklyn), ministering to Jamaica's growing Irish Catholic community. The parish's second home was a classic (and early) Romanesque Revival building completed in 1857 by a local Danish-born mason named Anders Peterson. (Attribution for the church's design usually goes to the pastor, Rev. Anthony Farley, but there are no records to support this claim.) The red brick building was rendered with a tall central campanile, reminiscent of Italian churches. It is one of the earliest surviving examples of Early Romanesque Revival architecture in the city, and one of the only Catholic Churches designed in this style here.

Jamaica was suffering from aging buildings and increased crime in the 1960s as the establishment of a new senior college in the CUNY system, York College, saw the surrounding blocks developed into a new campus. The church held its final mass in 1973, and the city soon took over control of the building. Not sealed or protected from vandals the church saw serious deterioration and the theft or destruction of many of its interior and exterior features. By 1990 when New York Times 'Streetscapes' writer Christopher Gray reported on the sad state of the building, the building had been landmarked, but the needs for restoration of the neglected continued to grow.

Following a long stretch of torrential rain in 1999 the walls and roof of the church collapsed. Slated for demolition at that point, instead, the facade of the 1857 church was saved and York College erected a new modern daycare center facility behind it.