St. Anselm's Roman Catholic Church as viewed from Wales Avenue, 1938.

The parish of St. Anselm's dates to 1891, while the current church building was not constructed until 1918. A clear stylistic change from most of the earlier nearby churches, St. Anselm's was designed in the Byzantine Revival style. It is said that the design was inspired by the Hagia Sophia, the basilica, turned mosque, turned museum in Istanbul, Turkey.

A quirky bit of religious history was once housed at St. Anselm's. The body of St. Peregine, who was martyred in Rome in A.D. 192 and entombed as a shrine and venerated by communities in Rome and then Germany, came to the Bronx for a time. In 1895, after a fire in the church where it had been housed , the shrine traveled to the United States and was kept at St. Anselm's in the Bronx until 1927, when it was removed to St. John's Abbey in Minnesota.