page_title: Childs Restaurants (Riegelmann Boardwalk location)
section_title: Redevelopment
hierarchical_section_title: Childs Restaurants (Riegelmann Boardwalk location) / History / Redevelopment
caption_attribution_description: English: The former Childs Restaurant (now part of the Ford Amphitheater), on the Riegelmann Boardwalk at West 21st Street in Coney Island, Brooklyn. The restaurant was renovated when the amphitheater constructed, and now hosts the Kitchen 21 restaurant.
context_page_description: The Childs Restaurants building is a New York City designated landmark on the Riegelmann Boardwalk at West 21st Street in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. It was completed in 1923 for Childs Restaurants, an early restaurant chain and one of the largest in the United States at that time. It was designed in a "resort style with Spanish Revival influence" with colorful exterior terra cotta ornamentation that references its seaside location, with depictions of Poseidon, sailing ships, and sea creatures. It was a very large restaurant, with three stories and a roof garden.
  Childs vacated the property in 1952. The building was used as a candy factory for over 50 years but was vacant and in a state of bad repair until it was converted into the Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island in 2013–2015.
  A considerably smaller prior Childs location in Coney Island, built in 1917 at Surf Avenue and West 12th Street and also a designated New York City landmark, survived as a Childs until 1943. Today it is owned by Coney Island USA, an arts organization.
context_section_description: The impetus for the adaptive reuse of the Childs building largely came from Marty Markowitz, who was Borough President of Brooklyn from 2002 through 2013. Markowitz had long sought a permanent venue for the series of summer concerts that he had sponsored for 35 years, since his time in the New York State Senate. In December 2013, just days before Markowitz's last day in office as borough president, the New York City Council approved plans to redevelop the building as part of a new entertainment venue called the "Seaside Park and Community Arts Center". The city originally expected completion of the project by the summer of 2015. The venue, the Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island, opened on July 1, 2016.
  A new amphitheater stage was built on the western side of the building. The completed amphitheater contains backstage space, a box office, and a restaurant, the first one to operate on the site for over sixty years. An adjacent green space called Seaside Park is also under construction.
caption: Restaurant in 2018 following renovations
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