NEWS: New Life for a Coney Island landmark
From the Daily News:
New life on menu for eatery; Coney site to get face-lift
BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The long-shuttered and graffiti-ridden Childs Restaurant in Coney Island could be reopened as a seaside food court or upscale eatery, the Daily News has learned.
Taconic Investment Partners signed a lease at the landmarked building in August, and also plans to build housing and retail across from the defunct restaurant.
“I think most people are happy with a restaurant coming in,” said Community Board 13 District Manager Chuck Reichenthal. “Every year you find another street that didn’t have a thing but is now the new ‘restaurant row.'”
In addition, a residential building with retail components is being eyed for a 180,000-square-foot lot across W. 21st St. from Childs. How high it will rise has not been determined, said Charles Bendit, chief executive at Taconic.
No restaurant had been chosen for the landmarked terra cotta building, Bendit said, but plans call for a food court, restaurant, grocery store or catering hall.
The restaurant bid is the latest deal to hit Coney Island since developer Thor Equities announced a $2 billion plan to add residential, retail and entertainment to the area.
Until now, however, most of the redevelopment has hinged on glitzy new rides, an indoor water park and a hotel in Coney Island’s amusement district – not food and housing.
Reichenthal declined to weigh in on the housing bid, except to say he was opposed to a building that would tower over the parachute jump, now the area’s tallest structure.
“The feeling is that nothing should be taller than the parachute jump, that that’s the definitive height of the Coney Island amusement district,” Reichenthal said.
Bendit would not rule out the possibility that the new building could be taller than the parachute jump.
Childs Restaurant, which opened the first of its nine cafeteria-style diners in 1898, extended to Coney Island in 1922 and included rooftop dancing, said Coney Island historian Michael Immerso.
“Certainly a venue that involves dancing in Coney Island would be consistent with what Childs had in mind,” Immerso said. “That would restore something that was synonymous with Coney Island’s early days.”
Originally published on December 13, 2006