rench has a long and complex history in New York, beginning with Huguenot refugees who played an important role in the city's early history and continuing with an influx of French immigrants in the 19th century who founded institutions in Chelsea and points north, as well as French Canadians whose national parish church until 1957 was St. Jean Baptiste in Lenox Hill. In the last decades of the 20th century, large numbers of speakers of French varieties arrived in the city from the Caribbean (especially from Haiti, where most speak the related Haitian Creole, but others prefer Standard French) as well as from West Africa, where French is an important lingua franca. Increasing numbers of French speakers from France and Canada have arrived in the city as well. A newer expat community is centered in part on the large French-American School in Larchmont.