TGI Friday's Restaurant (New York City, New York) | Streamline Moderne (architecture)

 restaurant, Streamline Moderne (architecture), historical layer / disappeared object

6-story Art-Deco/Streamline Moderne commercial building completed in 1925 as the Childs Building for the Childs restaurant chain of the time. Designed by William Van Alen, it was built without corner columns at the south end; there was a rounded glass corner instead. According to The New York Sun of Dec. 6, 1930, this was the first structure in the United States without corner columns.

The Childs Restaurant chain was established in the Financial District in the 1880's, emphasizing spare, sanitary surroundings and quick, modest lunches for office workers. Childs opened on Fifth Avenue in 1925 as a success, and soon there were nine Childses on the avenue. By 1927 the chain had expanded to 108 restaurants in the United States and Canada. Childs remained at 604 Fifth into the 1960's with only one major change. When the church on 48th Street was replaced by an office building in 1950, the curved glass at the corner was blocked off by the new building and replaced with glass block.

The Childs chain was acquired in 1961 by The Riese Organization, and within a decade most of the Childs restaurants had been replaced with more modern food operations. In 1981, Riese acquired the 604 Fifth Avenue building and in 1988 opened a Roy Rogers/Pizza Hut restaurant in the old Childs space. The limestone exterior is now painted a garish swimming pool blue color. Around 2000, new occupant TGI Friday's restaurant added signature red and white awnings on the first four floors' windows. To the north of the curved south corner, the upper floors have single-windows flanking a wider center triple-window. The end bay are round-arched on the top floor. The facade is crowned by an undulating parapet, rising up in the the center and at the south corner.

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