The congregation was originally founded in 1882 as "Temple Gates of Hope", a Reform congregation, by a group of German Jews. After several mergers, the congregation took the Hebrew name "Agudat Yesharim," and later petitioned the state of New York to change the official name of the congregation to "Park Avenue Synagogue" in 1923. In 1927, the present Moorish-style building on East 87th Street was constructed. By the 1930s, the congregation changed its affiliation from Reform to Conservative to accommodate the merger of the congregation with several other congregations containing large numbers of Eastern European Jews.