(Former) Childs Restaurant Building ARCHITECT: Dennison & Hirons DATE: 1923 STYLE: Spanish Colonial

Constructed in 1923, this restaurant building on the Boardwalk of Coney Island was designed by Dennison & Hirons in a fanciful resort style combining elements of the Spanish Colonial Revival with numerous maritime allusions that refer to its seaside location. This spacious restaurant building originally had a rooftop pergola and continuous arcades on two facades to allow for extensive ocean views.

Clad in stucco, the building’s arches, window openings and end piers feature elaborate polychrome terracotta ornament in whimsical nautical motifs that include images of fish, seashells, ships, and the ocean god Neptune. This building, with its large size, showy ornamentation and location on the Boardwalk, is a rare reminder of the diversions that awaited the huge crowds who thronged to Coney Island after the completion of the subway routes to the area.