Childs Restaurant Co. Building

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6-story office building originally completed as a 4-story mansion in 1853 for Gordon Norrie. After Norrie died in 1909, his widow left the house and it was gently converted for business purposes. Emily L. Norrie finally sold the former family home in 1919 to the Childs Restaurant Company. Rather than erect a new building, the company commissioned the architectural firm of Severance & Van Alen to convert the brownstone mansion into a modern commercial building. Completed within 10 months, the limestone-faced restaurant and office building revealed no hint of its former life.

The completed No. 377 was very restrained in its ornamentation. The limestone facade is organized into a wide center window flanked by narrow side windows. The spandrels have simple panels, except for between the 2nd & 3rd floors, where carved festoons constitute the bulk of the ornamentation. The 6th floor has a smaller double-window in the center, fronted by a small rounded balcony with wrought-iron railing and topped by a broken pediment and urn (echoing the two classic urns perched on the spartan parapet).

Childs Restaurant remained in the first floor space for decades, selling the building in 1945. Throughout the remainder of the century the building saw a wide variety of tenants, many from the novelty and accessory industries. Severance & Van Alen’s elegant street level façade has been replaced with an uninteresting modern storefront, now occupied by I Heart Souvenirs gift shop.

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