Toy Store FAO Schwarz To Close After 145 Years Toy Store FAO Schwarz to Close After 145 Years Ben Hider—Getty Images A general view of the exterior facade of FAO Schwarz flagship Toy store in the General Motors Building at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street on December 30, 2013 in New York City. FAO Schwarz hopes to find a new home in New York City The FAO Schwarz toy store on New York City’s Fifth Avenue will be closing its doors this summer. It’s the last remaining location of the iconic toy brand. FAO Schwarz has had a location in New York City since 1870, but on July 15, the flagship location will close because of higher rents in the prime shopping district and competition from online retailers, reports the New York Times. The store once had 40 locations across the country, but the one on Fifth Avenue, which opened in 1986, is the only store remaining. Toys “R” Us, which owns FAO Schwarz, will continue to sell the boutique brand in its stores.

But the company has troubles of its own; by the end of 2016 it plans to leave its flagship location on Broadway in Times Square. FAO Schwarz is reportedly looking for a new home in New York City. FAO Schwarz - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on FAO Schwarz FAO Schwarz - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on FAO Schwarz 767 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10153 U.S.A. Company Perspectives: FAO prides itself in offering unique products in an unforgettable environment. Management designed its stores to interact with customers in a manner which distinguishes itself from other retailers. Considered the leading specialty seller of toys and collectibles in the United States, FAO is a mecca for toy lovers from all over the world. History of FAO Schwarz FAO Schwarz operates a chain of more than 40 high-end toy stores around the United States, with its flagship outlet and headquarters located on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The company is renowned for offering the most exclusive and expensive toys available, but its approach has broadened in recent years to include more mainstream items as well.

The firm has been through a series of owners since the Schwarz family sold it in 1963, with the Dutch retail conglomerate Vendex International the most recent, having acquired it in 1998. 1860s Origins FAO Schwarz traces its beginnings to the Civil War era, when German immigrant Frederick August Otto Schwarz opened a toy store in Baltimore, Maryland, that specialized in dolls. In 1870 the store, known as Schwarz Toy Bazaar, moved to a location on Broadway in New York City, where Frederick Schwarz and his three brothers made a name for themselves by importing fine European toys. The growing business needed new quarters just a decade later, when it was moved to Union Square. After several further moves, FAO Schwarz (as it had become known) settled in 1931 at 745 Fifth Avenue, in the heart of Manhattan's most prestigious shopping district. The elegant new store featured a marble staircase and a slide that went from the first floor down to the main level. Schwarz toy displays were legendary, with the Christmas season's elaborately decorated windows a tourist destination in their own right.

The name FAO Schwarz had by then become synonymous with the most exclusive, imaginative, and expensive toys available, and the store's clientele was drawn from the elite of New York. The Schwarz family continued to run the store until the early 1960s, when a lack of interest among the younger generation led family members to decide to sell it. In 1963, it was purchased by Parent's Magazine, who just seven years later sold it to W.R. Grace & Co. Grace, too, lasted for only a short while, selling the company to toy retailer Franz Carl Weber International of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1974. By this time Schwarz had opened stores in several locations outside of New York. The chain's momentum faltered under the distant oversight of Weber, however, which saw less attention given to discovering new, innovative merchandise. Sales were also being lost to aggressive new discount toy and department store chains. By the early 1980s, Schwarz appeared to be in serious trouble. The chain of stores, which had grown to 32, soon shrank by ten as unprofitable outlets (some in hotel lobbies) were closed.

The surviving stores included sites in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans, as well as in a number of suburban locations. In 1985, Weber decided to abandon ship and sold the company to real estate and investment firm Christiana Companies, Inc. for $10.5 million. At this time Schwarz had annual revenues of approximately $20 million. Just a few months later the firm's ownership changed yet again, this time when it was acquired by Christiana Companies president and CEO Peter L. Harris and a Philadelphia-based investment banker, Peter C. Morse. The 42-year old Harris was an 18-year veteran of California retail chain Lucky Stores, where he had served as president of its Gemco discount chain. He had earlier attempted unsuccessfully to acquire Schwarz on his own, before linking up with Christiana. Harris assembled a new management team of executives with retail experience at Macy's, The Gap, and other major retailers, and began to tackle Schwarz's myriad problems. One of the first ideas to be implemented was a broadening of the store's merchandise to offer a wider range of items, though the exclusive high-end toys the store was known for would not be abandoned.

New trends and fashions were again sought out, the company's mothballed catalog was revived, and personal shopping services and home delivery were added. Another important change was the relocation of the chain's flagship store at 745 Fifth Avenue to a space across the street at 767 Fifth. The new store would fill 2 stories and 40,000 square feet at the foot of the General Motors Building, beginning in late 1986. A Spectacular New Flagship Store The converted GM auto showroom, which had entrances on both Fifth and Madison Avenues, was a third larger than the old store. The new location's redesigned interior also featured a more open layout that included 80 specialty boutique areas, prominent escalators, and lots of window space. For its grand opening, the store was wrapped in red cloth and a white bow, with a large card that said "Do Not Open Until November 6." New York mayor Ed Koch presided over the opening ceremony, which featured balloons and a parade of costumed toy characters.

The new store was much more fanciful and "touchable" than the previous one, though it still offered the company's trademark selection of everything from teddy bears to a $12,500 half-size Ferrari car capable of reaching 30 miles an hour. There were also children's clothes, a kids' hair salon, and even gourmet peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. The middle of the store featured a 28-foot tall, computer-programmed animated clock tower that played a song called "Welcome to Our World of Toys" every 15 minutes, and there was a glass-walled elevator and a life-size cave, among many other child-pleasing amenities. In addition to the toys available in the store, Schwarz' catalog contained even more elaborate gift options, including a cartoon written by and starring one's child ($180,000), an African Safari adventure ($50,000) and a 14-child overnight party at the New York store that included airfare, a stretch limousine, accommodations at the Plaza, and a tour of the city led by a costumed Pinocchio character ($18,000).

The new store was a huge hit with the public, and in 1988 it was featured in a scene in the popular Disney movie Big in which characters played a huge piano by jumping on the oversized keys. Schwarz was subsequently deluged with requests for the $15,000 instrument and a smaller model that cost $6,250. The company, which did not advertise, was frequently mentioned in children's books and movies, a testament to its reputation as the ultimate toy store in the world. The latter half of the 1980s saw Harris and his team continuing to fine-tune Schwarz operations, with under-performing locations closed and a new superstore opened in San Francisco. The latter featured a miniature city with a drive-in theater that showed the film Godzilla on a 2-inch screen, among other imaginative details. Venture capital funding of $7 million was obtained to help with the company's evolution, and by 1990 sales had more than doubled to approximately $50 million. Schwarz, now operating solidly in the black, was also readying new stores for Beverly Hills, Chicago, and Boston.

1990 Purchase by KBB In 1990, the company was sold yet again, this time to Dutch retail giant NV Koninklijke Bijenkorf Beheer (KBB), for an estimated $40 million. Chairman and co-owner Peter Morse left the company, while Peter Harris and the remainder of his management team remained in place. KBB had sales of $2.4 billion for 1989, and its deep pockets were expected to fund further expansion of the chain, perhaps including Europe and Japan. The year after the sale the company announced plans to open seven more new stores, including two in the Boston area and a second, 30,000-square foot location in Chicago's North Michigan Avenue shopping district. The latter would be Schwarz's fourth in the metropolitan area. 1992 saw turnaround guru Peter Harris step down to move to the San Francisco Bay area, where he would several years later be named president of the 49ers football team. He cited family reasons for his decision to leave. His place was taken by 44-year-old John Eyler, the Harvard-educated CEO of Hartmarx Specialty Stores, Inc. of Chicago.

In the fall of 1992, Schwarz opened its first "Barbie Boutique" at the Fifth Avenue location, a store-within-a-store dedicated entirely to the venerable, hourglass-figured Mattel doll. An expanded bookstore, "Bookmonster," was added during the year as well. More new stores were opened in 1993, including 12,000 square foot "mall flagship" units in Bellevue, Washington; Costa Mesa, California; and St. Louis, Missouri. The company was in the process of upgrading its non-New York sites, trying to give each some of the glamour of the Fifth Avenue store, which the public had come to expect via its frequent appearances in movies and on television. By the mid-1990s, Schwarz's profits were again dropping, partly due to the competitive toy marketplace, which had seen a number of chains fail under the dominance of Toys "R" Us and discounters like Target and Wal-Mart. The company was also hurt by its higher cost of doing business, which included the fanciful decorative elements each store now featured. In 1995, the company introduced a line of exclusive licensed products in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History.

Later in the year Schwarz invested in and co-produced the Broadway musical version of the movie Big which featured a recreation of the scenes in the Fifth Avenue store. The $9 million production opened the following April. Mid-1990s: FAO Schweetz Debuts In 1996, Schwarz began to introduce a new concept, FAO Schweetz, an interactive store-within-a-store in some of the company's locations which offered canister-filled and bulk candy. The company had previously sold the products under a licensing agreement in New York and San Francisco, but acquired the manufacturer and set up the business as a division. The company's older store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago was later completely converted into a Schweetz outlet. Schwarz allied with television marketing giant QVC in 1997 to offer specialized merchandise and FAO Schwarz-branded products on a 2-hour program called "FAO Schwarz--The Premier." In the summer of the year, new "mega-flagship" stores were readied for the tourist destinations of Orlando, Florida, and Las Vegas, Nevada, while the Manhattan store prepared to expand from 40,000 square feet to 60,000.

By this time the company had a total of 39 locations, including 23 mall flagship sites and 12 smaller stores. Schwarz also distributed 6 million copies of its catalog to customers worldwide, which generated 11 percent of total sales. A third of its merchandise was exclusive to the chain, while another third was considered hard to find and the remainder consisted of mass-marketed goods like Barbie. The average item cost $26, with the Mattel doll the single most popular item. During this time the company was expanding its line of house-branded toys, as well as those offered in partnership with major manufacturers, such as the "F.A.O. Barbie" which sported fashionable clothes, an F.A.O. bag, and a credit card. In the realm of cyberspace, where the company had first established its presence with the launch of in 1995, Schwarz reached revenue-sharing deals with a number of Web-based companies such as Prodigy and Yahoo! to sell toys over the Internet. A marketing deal with General Motors was also signed in January of 1998 in which the GMC "Jimmy" Sport Utility Vehicle was designated the "Official Big Kids Toy" at all of the chain's stores.

Schwarz would sell a toy version of the SUV and insert GM advertising literature into shopping bags with purchases. The two companies' Web sites were linked as well. In early 1998, Schwarz's ownership changed when KBB was acquired by another Dutch retailer, Vendex International. Late 1990s Under Vendex During the summer of the year, the hit movie Titanic spawned a series of toys that were produced by Schwarz in conjunction with film studio 20th Century Fox, including a $395 doll and a Baccarat crystal rendering of the ship priced at $2,500. Controversy arose in the fall when allegations of racist treatment of employees surfaced in a lawsuit filed by eight former workers at the Fifth Avenue store. The complaints centered upon a single manager, who subsequently left the firm. 1998 was a weak year sales-wise, with the company's heavy promotion for the film Babe: Pig in the City failing to pay off when the film did poorly. Vendex later began floating rumors that the chain was for sale, although a deal did not materialize.

Continuing to move forward, in 1999 Schwarz signed a host of new licensing agreements that brought in additional exclusive products, such as Creative Optics eyewear and lines of clothing and furniture. The company also unveiled a new corporate logo and redesigned store interiors. The rebranding was intended to impart a more playful and cartoon-like ambience, with the company's longstanding rocking horse icon retained as a design element. A new slogan, "Wish Big," replaced the previous one, "We're Serious About Play." An additional Internet marketing agreement, with San Francisco-based FamilyWonder.com, was also announced in 1999. January of 2000 saw the company lose its top officer, John Eyler, to rival Toys "R" Us. Eyler took the positions of president and CEO with the discount chain, which was now dealing with a variety of problems. Among other achievements, Eyler was credited with greatly boosting the percentage of exclusive items offered in Schwarz stores. He was replaced by Bud Johnson, Schwarz's president and chief operating officer. Schwarz subsequently filed suit against both Toys "R" Us and Eyler, alleging "irreparable harm" would result from his changing employers.

The same year, 2000, also saw a new store opened in Atlanta's Mall of Georgia, which was the first to be built around the revised brand identity. Other developments included formation of an alliance with Discovery Communications to offer its Exploration Toy Shop inside the Fifth Avenue store, and a redesign of the Schwarz Web site. In 2001, a new concept, FAO Baby, was launched, first as a department in the Fifth Avenue store, and then as a freestanding outlet in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, where it replaced an older store. FAO Baby was divided into separate boutiques from different manufacturers, such as Baby Gund, Lamaze, Fisher Price, and Playskool. As in Schwarz's other stores, the emphasis was on upscale toys and clothing attractively displayed. The firm also worked during the year with Irwin Toy to develop products for preschoolers based on the PBS television series Caillou. As the company approached the Christmas shopping season of 2001, rumors were again surfacing that owner Vendex was seeking a buyer for Schwarz, reportedly due to the Dutch firm's desire to focus on its European operations.

Expansion plans were nonetheless ongoing, with new large locations expected to open in both San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2002. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., the firm announced it would partner with New Yorkers For Children, making a donation to that organization's special fund for children and families affected by the collapse of the World Trade Center. Celebrating its 140th anniversary, FAO Schwarz remained the world's premier toy retailer, known for its imaginative and expensive offerings, as well as for the wonder-inspiring environments of its stores. Although the possibility of new ownership was yet again on the horizon, the company was continuing to do what it had done best for generations: satisfying the cravings of children for the toys of their dreams. Principal Divisions: FAO Schweetz; FAO Baby. Principal Competitors: Toys "R" Us, Inc.; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; Target Corp.; K-B Toys. Chronology 1862: Frederick August Otto Schwarz opens a toy store in Baltimore. 1870: Schwarz and his brothers move their business to Broadway in New York City.

1880: The store is moved to larger quarters on Union Square. 1931: The store relocates to 745 Fifth Avenue. 1963: Schwarz family sells firm to Parent's Magazine. 1970: Parent's sells company to W.R. Grace & Co. 1974: Schwarz acquired by F.A. Weber International. 1986: Peter L. Harris leads buyout of firm after its acquisition by Christiana Cos. 1986: Flagship store moves to bigger quarters at 767 Fifth Avenue. 1990: FAO Schwarz is acquired by Dutch retailer KBB. 1996: First FAO Schweetz store opens. 1998: Vendex International becomes Schwarz's owner with purchase of KBB. Additional Details Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Vendex International N.V.

Incorporated: 1862 Sales: $197 million (2000 est.) NAIC: 451120 Hobby, Toy, and Game Stores Further Reference Barmash, Isadore, "Christiana Diversifies, Buys FAO Schwarz," Houston Chronicle, June 23, 1985, p. 9. Brown, Chip, "Where the Toys Are: FAO Schwarz Opens New N.Y. Flagship Store," Washington Post, November 7, 1986, p. C1. "FAO Schwarz on Comeback Trail--New Co-Owner Has Fun Reviving Legendary Toy Retailer," Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1986, p. 2. "FAO Schwarz's Walking Piano Plays into the Hearts of 'Big' Fans," Atlanta Journal, Atlanta Constitution, July 26, 1988, p. E6. Fitzpatrick, Michele, "Old-Timer, Upstart Make a Play for Youth Market," KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, November 23, 1999.

Foderaro, Lisa, "FAO Schwarz Expands, With Visions of Briefer Waits," New York Times, August 26, 1997, p. 5. Graves, Neil, "Famed FAO Schwarz is New York's Own 'Toy Story,'" New York Post, November 26, 1999, p. 2. Gupta, Udayan, "The Fortress Companies: FAO Schwarz Is Back on Track with New Crew," Wall Street Journal, May 21, 1990, p. B1. Hagerty, Bob, "FAO Schwarz's Buyer Proposes an Expansion--Dutch Firm KBB to Open More Sites in U.S., Move to Europe and Japan," Wall Street Journal, August 24, 1990. Howard, Susan, "At FAO Schwarz, Now, A Boutique Barbie Can Call Home," Newsday, November 11, 1992, p. 62. Kranhold, Kathryn, "FAO Schwarz Hopes to Woo Kids with Clothes, Chairs and Eyewear," Wall Street Journal, October 19, 1999, p.

B8. Morgan, Babette, "Child's Play--New FAO Schwarz Stores Capture the Magic of Toys," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 24, 1993, p. 1E. Mouchard, Andre, "FAO Aims for Triple Play," Orange County Register, November 9, 1993, p. C1. Neumeister, Larry, "Toy Store Employee Says Company Knew of Racial Discrimination," Associated Press Newswires, September 30, 1998. Paltrow, Scot J., "Buyouts R Us: Dutch Acquire FAO Schwarz," Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1990, p. 1. Rose, Michael, "The Big Toy Story," Australian Financial Review, May 23, 1997, p. 11. Rosenberg, Ronald, "FAO Schwarz Polishes a New Image," Boston Globe, May 1, 1991. Schatz, Robin, "Retailer Working Harder at Play," Newsday, April 14, 1986, p. 5.

Strom, Stephanie, "Palace of Toys Finds Profits Elusive," New York Times, December 23, 1993, p. D1. "Toys 'R' Us Sued for Hiring Former FAO Schwarz Chief," Dow Jones Business News, February 17, 2000. Wilson, Craig, "56 Years of Toy Stories," USA Today, December 15, 1995, p. 1A. User Contributions: FAO Schwarz is closing its flagship Manhattan store because the rent is too damn high — Quartz How We Buy May 15, 2015 If you’ve never been to the legendary FAO Schwarz store in Manhattan, now is the time. Rising rents are forcing the toy store to close in July. Toys “R” Us, the store’s owner, said it is looking for a new Manhattan home for the 153-year-old brand, and one source told Bloomberg a new location may open in late 2016. Last week, Crain’s New York reported that FAO Schwarz was considering a move to Times Square.

“The company is committed to the FAO Schwarz brand and growing its legacy,” Toys “R” Us said in a statement. In the meantime, Toys “R” Us will continue to sell FAO-branded toys in its own stores and online. Sales of toys have been on the upswing—in 2014, $18.08 billion of toys were sold online, 4% more than were sold in 2013, according to market research firm NPD Group —but Manhattan rent rises faster. On Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th Streets, asking rents for ground floor space rose 15.2% in the first quarter of 2015 from a year prior, according to Cushman & Wakefield . Founded in 1862, FAO Schwarz is America’s oldest toy store. Its flagship New York store was located at 745 Fifth Avenue for much of last century. It moved to its current location, at 767 Fifth Avenue, in 1986.

The store holds a special place in the heart of all children of the 1980s, as the place where Tom Hanks in Big played a giant piano with his boss, and got a promotion, thereby proving we are all children at heart—and that a high school education and college diploma are unnecessary for corporate success, as long as you know “Heart and Soul.” Read full story F.A.O. Schwarz Is Closing: How the Most Iconic Toy Store in New York Ushered Kids Into the Class Wars - The Atlantic The Atlantic See our Newsletters > How F.A.O. Schwarz Ushered Kids Into the Class Wars From a $15,000 mini-Mercedes to a $30,000 dollhouse, the legendary store, which closed its doors this week, specialized in preparing children for lives of privilege. A young child reacts to the safari-like toys on display at F.A.O. Schwarz on the flagship store's last day of operation in New York City. Lucas Jackson / Reuters Most Popular Print Text Size F.A.O.

Schwarz, one of the oldest toy stores in the United States, is best known as the whimsical setting for the piano scene in the movie Big: That piano, now, is no more. This week, citing the high cost of commercial real estate in New York City, F.A.O. Schwarz—“as much of a must on any tourist’s itinerary as Tiffany & Co. or Bergdorf Goodman” according to Fortune — closed the doors of its flagship store, across from The Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Schwarz continues its sales online, and there’s a chance, its current owner, Toys ‘R’ Us, has said, that it will open a brick-and-mortar operation in another, slightly cheaper, location. For now, though, that piano has been packed up. And so has, with it, Big’s easy symbolism: that the basic ideas toys represent—a sense of wonder, a sense of play, a sense that the world serves primarily as a backdrop for fun—can endure into adulthood. That childhood isn’t so much a stage as, yes, a state of mind. But F.A.O. Schwarz, outside of Hollywood, didn’t simply sell stuffed animals and dolls and model trains and other such traditional tools of childhood.

That Toys ‘R’ Us bought the legendary company, in 2009, represented something of a downgrade for Schwarz , and that was largely because “us” implies an inclusivity that ran counter to the Schwarz brand. The store, instead, was best known for bringing the tenets of the “luxury good” to the toy market—for selling what CNN once called, simply, “ pricey toys for rich kids .” That was an understatement; the toys on offer, particularly in recent years, weren’t just “pricey,” they were downright Trumpian. There was the $15,000 mini-Mercedes , gas-powered, with room for two children in its tiny seating area. There was the $30,000 off-road vehicle , designed, Schwarz said, to give kids “their first driving experience.” There was the treehouse that came complete with its own tree ($12,000; “gift wrap,” unfortunately, “not available”).

There was the $9,000 “ rocking zebra .” There was the customized playhouse called “ La Petite Maison ,” which had a starting price of $30,000, but rose in price according to its size, its architectural details, and the furnishings deemed fit for it by a “professional children’s interior decorator.” A boy poses with his sweet ride in the 2004 edition of the F.A.O. Schwarz catalog. (F.A.O. Schwarz) Toys, sure, have long been fashion items—for parents as much as, and sometimes more than, children. Playthings, objects on display both at home and in public, have long allowed for moms and dads (and also doting friends and relatives) not just to give commercial expression to their love for the kids in their lives, but also to demonstrate to others just how deep that love is. Toys, like most anything else one can purchase from a multi-level emporium on Fifth Avenue , have long been enablers of conspicuous consumption. Toys have also long had, however, an educational function.

Dolls, in particular, have served to model behavior for their young owners, whether that behavior involves parenthood or siblinghood or more general personhood. Barbies, G.I. Joes, Cabbage Patch Kids, Transformers, American Girls, stuffed animals—they teach caring and companionship, all cozily conscribed within a particular, doll-defined set of rules and expectations. Train sets and Legos and K’nexes and all the other manifestations of building blocks do similar work when it comes to modeling the world’s material workings. Toys, of whatever category or brand, ultimately distill the realities of the adult world—physical, commercial, social—into easy, kid-friendly approximations. Into, in other words, games. F.A.O. Schwarz, with its spate of high-end offerings, simply took all of that Piagetian logic to its logical extreme. “When children are used to living well,” the brand’s 2004 catalog explained , “they should play like this.” And they should, in the process, the catalog suggested, prepare themselves for the particular obligations that come with privilege—not in the great power/great responsibility kind of way, but in the purely commercial way.

Schwarz’s toys were not just toys, but also helpful primers for planned-upon lives of wealth. They were playthings that doubled as performances, instructing the kids who owned them in often unspoken and yet often all-powerful modes of luxurious living. (They should play like this.) The code, unsurprisingly, included heavy gendering. For girls, Schwarz offered a $950 pavé diamond bracelet that billed itself, entirely unironically, as “starter jewelry.” (It also offered an Etch-a-Sketch re-imagined as “the ultimate display piece,” the toy featuring “over 10,000 dazzling handset sapphire Swarovski crystals.”) For boys, there was a life-size model of the NBA superstars Jason Kidd and Allan Houston , made of Legos ($15,000). There was also a dinosaur-themed ball pit nicknamed, inexplicably but revealingly, “I’m the Boss.” In that sense, it is hard to mourn the closing of F.A.O. Schwarz.

Particularly because its ethos—whether via a Mercedes Benz G55, recommended for children ages 3 to 7 , or via all the similar toys that teach children not just about caring and community, but class—lives on. As Toys ‘R’ Us put it when it announced the closing of its flagship store , “The company is committed to the F.A.O. Schwarz brand and growing its legacy.” Toys Were Us: The Tragic End of F.A.O. Schwarz Princes Mabel's Mission to End Child Marriage Toys Were Us: The Tragic End of F.A.O. Schwarz For 153 years, F.A.O. Schwarz granted the wishes of America's luckiest children while charming their prosperous parents. When the store closed its doors this past summer, did we lose more than the sum of its inventory? Most Popular By Thomas Beller Nov 18, 2015 Louis Auchincloss's story "The Landmarker" tells of an heiress who owns a beautiful old building in Manhattan and her dear friend, an architecture afi- cionado, who begs her to save it from being torn down. He is passionate and persuasive. She is recep- tive.

The reader feels hopeful. But then hope runs into reality. At the end of the story, the old man turns a corner one day to find that his beloved building is no longer there. Like the demise of that building, the closing of F.A.O. Schwarz came as a shock even as it felt inevitable, the erasure of yet another orienting point on the map. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below If you grow up in New York City, as I did, you become inured to the continuous erosion of the landscape of your childhood. Still, F.A.O. Schwarz was a special case, because its identity was so wrapped up in the feeling of specialness that emanated from the store and pollinated its surroundings—the feeling that New York was the place you went to get one-of-a-kind things, and also the feeling that New York City itself was a one-of-a-kind thing. Most Popular "I was devastated to hear that the flagship store closed, and relieved that my children were old enough not to care," a friend wrote me. "F.A.O. on Fifth was our Mecca. It was a temple not just to toys but to childhood itself." Right from F.A.O.

Schwarz's early years—it was founded in 1862, in Baltimore—there were other locations. But the locus of its mystique was the flagship store in New York City. It opened on lower Broadway in 1870, moving to Union Square in 1880 and to 23rd Street in 1897. The intervals between those moves are mea- sured in decades, but compared with what came next they were mere pit stops. In 1931, F.A.O. Schwarz moved to 745 Fifth Avenue, at 58th Street, and in 1986 it crossed 58th Street and settled into the southwest corner of the General Motors Building. F.A.O. Schwarz was a store, but it was also a place of magic and alchemy, in which mere cash could be parlayed into something that, during the holidays, is even more valuable: the happiness of a kid opening a present. It was as though Santa's workshop had a front parlor where you could look at the most finely crafted, wondrous, and deluxe of all the offerings made in the back. The toys at F.A.O.

Schwarz were always of the highest quality, which is another way of saying they were expensive. As often happens when money amasses in one place, it becomes both the central fact and beside the point, felt but not seen. I mean this literally; like a restaurant that distributes menus without prices, F.A.O. Schwarz tagged its products with a mysterious code called "Borgenicht"—a German word meaning "never borrow"—known only to the employees. A shopper, pointing to an object of desire, had no way of knowing its cost. To find out he had to ask a sales- person. And a salesperson was always at hand to escort the shop- per from one section to the next. An avaricious young window shopper outside F.A.O. Schwarz. The store took such displays very seriously; Maurice Sendak was once employed as a window dresser. Waring Abbott/Getty Images Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Frederick August Otto Schwarz, the store's founder, would seek out craftsmen in the small towns of Europe and use his buying power to get exclusives on the items he liked. "What can you do for me?" he would ask.

By this he did not mean "How low can you go on price?" in the Walmart usage, but rather what modifications could be made, per his specifications, that would result in a better product, which usually meant a more expensive one. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Schwarz was an early practitioner of selling by mail order, and his bounteous catalogs echoed the effect of his crowded but metic- ulously organized store. He was also one of the first merchants to emphasize the window display in attracting customers. Saks can claim Andy Warhol as one of its window dressers. F.A.O. Schwarz can claim Maurice Sendak. (Also Robert Mapplethorpe, but let's not dwell on that outrageous juxtaposition.) The most important and enduring of Schwarz's innovations, however, was Santa. Schwarz did not invent Santa Claus, but he was the first merchant, of toys or anything else, to put a live Santa in a store, in 1875—the first to associate the rosy-cheeked old man in a red suit not just with giving toys but with buying them.

So you should thank him, or curse him, the next time you wander into a drug- store on some balmy November day and hear "Jingle Bells" on the PA. Most Popular For generations of Americans, F.A.O. Schwarz was embroidered into the array of images and emotions we associate with the holiday season, like a retail version of The Nutcracker. With his bushy beard and twinkling eyes, Schwarz was even said to resemble Santa himself. A six-foot-tall Indian Wigwam from the 1911 catalog. A set of tomahawks cost 50 cents. Courtesy Smithsonian Archives WHO or what, killed F.A.O. Schwarz? You could declare the mystery solved simply by saying, "Manhattan Real Estate." Like "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown," the phrase has a spooky finality that cannot be contested. Nevertheless, one day in late summer I went to 58th and Fifth to see the crime scene for myself. Within a block of what used to be F.A.O.

Schwarz are a number of the world's most famous purveyors of unappeasable desire: Tiffany, Van Cleef & Arpels, Louis Vuitton, Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier—impressive neighbors for a store selling children's toys, however rarefied they may be. But for me the intersection's identity was informed primarily by the Pierre and Plaza hotels, and especially by a now extinct place called Rumplemeyer's, once located in the lobby of what used to be the St. Moritz hotel and is now the Ritz-Carlton, on Central Park South. Was Rumplemeyer's hot chocolate with whipped cream as extra-delicious as I recall? Or was the pleasure I associate with the place wrapped up in the ceremony: the fancy silverware, the starched linen, and the plethora of stuffed animals lined up above the counter, so different from the kind one sees at a carnival. A trip to that part of town in winter involved a certain formality that even as a kid I recognized as being part of an old-fashioned grandeur—an aesthetic of plushness, of heavy fabrics and dark wooden furniture, all those bygone indicators of wealth and taste that have been eclipsed by glass and brushed steel.

When F.A.O. Schwarz closed, it wasn't just a toy store that was being mourned—it was the larger sense of occasion that surrounded a visit to the neighborhood. And it is important to mention that visitors, back then, accommodated themselves to New York, whereas at some moment in the late 1990s New York began to accommodate itself to the visitor. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below With all this in mind I came to the corner of 58th and Fifth and sighted the now vacant storefront where F.A.O. Schwarz had been through the prism of the Apple Store. If that metaphor weren't explicit enough, I later discovered that the Apple Store is mov- ing into the space previously occupied by F.A.O. Schwarz while its own space is being renovated. The General Motors Building, once a brut- ish, modern presence amid the rococo Plaza and Pierre, now seemed to recoil slightly from the glass monolith at its base and the crowds surging in and out. That should have been the end of it. Case closed! The purveyor of the world's most high-priced and elegant wish-granting machine had conspired with Manhattan Real Estate to kill off its most high-priced and elegant toy store.

But mysteries that solve themselves too quickly always make me suspicious; they leave me feeling that there is more to see. I had read about Amazon's latest service, Amazon Prime Now, and decided to try it out. The idea of snapping (or tapping) your fingers and immediately getting what you want, as though a butler were on the other side of the door, with access to a limitless pantry, was exciting. But what was in the pantry? Perusing the top sellers I found cat food, paper towels, printer ink. The most desirable item was a Bose Bluetooth speaker. There was magic, but it was all in the method. It wasn't so much what you got but the manner in which you got it. Once the butler, or the drone, retreats, you are left with your printer ink, your cat food, your paper towels. I took a stroll down Fifth Avenue, past the New York Public Library, past the Empire State Building, until I was gazing up at the sharp end of the Flatiron Building. To my left was Madison Square Park. To my right, a place once called the Toy Building.

If you face the Toy Building from across Fifth Avenue you will see a curious feature: a skywalk over 24th Street. Once upon a time, not that long ago, that skywalk contained the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. A series of bronze plaques dedicated to the inventors of such perennials as the Slinky, the teddy bear, and the Etch A Sketch lined the walls. It had been the nerve center of the American toy industry as recently as 2007. Now it was covered in scaffolding. Manhattan Real Estate had done its work. The bronze plaques were packed away. The showrooms and businesses scattered. The Toy Building's ground floor is now occupied by Eataly, the giant food emporium. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Steve Pasierb, president of the U.S. Toy Industry Association, told me that now "buyers don't all come into the city. The city gets on a plane and goes to Minneapolis, to meet with Target, or they go to Arkansas and meet with Walmart. Lego has a showroom in Connecticut. Hasbro has one in Rhode Island. Mattel is in L.A." The toy business is going strong, he said.

Sales are up 6 percent this year, and the annual toy convention at the Javits Center sells out. The "classic toys"—the Lincoln Logs, the Legos, the Slinkys— are still selling, and there has been an explosion in new, high-tech toys: cars controlled by a smartphone, drones. Even Elmo has had a software upgrade. "It goes way beyond Tickle Me Elmo," Pasierb said. "It's now All Day Elmo. He says 150 different things, and he sings songs." Most Popular "What about Mr. Potato Head?" I asked. "Mr. Potato Head still sells." "But does he talk?" F.A.O. Schwarz added the singing clock in 1986. Courtesy Toys R Us "ONE thing that happened during the week was that Schwarz's toy store moved uptown, from Thirty-first Street to Fifty-eighth Street," E.B. White wrote in an unsigned Talk of the Town item for the New Yorker in 1931.

"It will be quite a change for the clerks," he added, "some of whom have been working for the firm since the Grover Cleveland administration." White reported that Teddy Roosevelt used to bring his children in and let them each fill a wicker basket with toys, and that Washington Augustus Roebling, the man who helped build the Brooklyn Bridge, was "crazy about jigsaw puzzles." The child star Jackie Coogan, famous from Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and, later, Oliver Twist, came "escorted by his father and his mother and a detective. Then worth only 500,000 dollars, Jackie bought a dollar seventy five target game, stayed an hour and a half after closing, and finally fell asleep on a counter full of Jackie Coogan dolls." This notion of F.A.O. Schwarz as a kind of toy VIP room per- sisted for decades. In 1986, New York magazine reported that Diana Ross was a regular. Michael Jackson would be whisked to a private room; so would Frank Perdue, the chicken magnate, though he had to request it. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below A toy is a single, special thing. Yet we want toys in abundance.

We want to be drowning in them, overwhelmed by their vari- ety and sheer numerousness. When Fortune ran a story on F.A.O. Schwarz in 1940, it staged a photograph of two small children standing in a room full of toys, their shoulders bunched slightly around their ears as though worried it all might fall on their heads, but also pointing upward, as if to exclaim, "I want that one!" This sense of profusion is an aspect of toy display that F.A.O. Schwarz perfected. As the store prospered it got bigger, and the increasing scale became part of the attraction. But unlike at today's big box stores, at F.A.O. Schwarz the inventory was kept out of sight. Everything a customer saw on the sales floor was a sample, much of it kept under glass. "You would show people things," said Caroline Schwarz- Schastny, the founding F.A.O.'s great-granddaughter, who functions as a kind of family historian.

"There was much more interest in actually selling, in listening to what people wanted and making suggestions, more interest in what people wanted and needed." According to Schwarz-Schastny the store's history is dotted with over-the-top shopping binges, including the time a Texas man came to buy life-size animals to populate his nativity scene and had all of them shipped back to Texas, and the time a man arrived in a Ferrari with his son and purchased the toy version of the car for the boy. "All the salespeople had to be present in the store the night before Christmas," she told me. "Because of the last-minute shoppers?" I asked. "Because after all the old men had their fill of whatever at the office Christmas party, they came in and would buy everything in the store." Were they just being generous, their prudence overcome by liquor and the holiday spirit? Or were they trying to absolve themselves of some- thing that had happened at the office party? There was no way to know. "Of recent years," White noted in 1931, "the grandson has carried on the business"—an offhand remark that glosses over considerable anguish in the Schwarz family. H.F.

Schwarz, the founder's son, died of heart dis- ease in 1925, at the age of 59. His son, another F.A.O. who went by Fritz, had not intended to work in the family business. At the time of his father's death he had finished Harvard Law School and was about to start work as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. But he abandoned the clerkship and moved to New York to mind the store, and his mother. Once both were in sufficient order, Fritz left to join a law firm and eventually became managing partner of Davis, Polk. (A Mr. Baettenhausen was put in charge of the store—a scandalous figure in the family lore who apparently had Gloria Swanson as a mistress.) As chairman Fritz decided to move F.A.O. Schwarz from 31st Street up to 745 Fifth Avenue in the depths of the Great Depression. The store's sales were flat for a couple of years. When the Depression lifted, business boomed to new heights.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below One theme that emerged when I talked to members of the Schwarz family, from one generation to the next, is how the extravagance of owning the world's most famous toy store was never allowed to affect the younger generation's sense of entitlement, especially when it came to toys. One Christmas Eve young H.F. Schwarz was caught eyeing the hobby horse he had been beg- ging for through a keyhole he had been warned away from. As punishment, there was no hobby horse on Christmas morning. Fritz was to make another major move in 1963, following the death of his mother, when he decided to sell the business. Most Popular "He asked, 'Are any of my children going to run the store?' " his son F.A.O. Schwarz III, who goes by Fritz Jr., told me. "I, the oldest, was incompetent and didn't want to anyway. And my next brother, Marshall, who later became head of U.S. Trust, didn't want to either." Fritz Jr. later represented such corporate titans as IBM and Time Inc. as a partner at Cravath and is now mostly retired from practice.

He has served as a special commissioner under New York City mayors from Koch to de Blasio and is now a chief counsel at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice. Fritz Jr. didn't go into the family business, but he said the family name has served him well anyway. "Judges would always smile when they saw it," he said. "It put them in a good mood." "By that time you were in the fourth generation and facing the problems of dispersed ownership. Also, my father had the instinct that the luxury toy business was going to get tougher and tougher. He could see the trend of toys being used as a loss leader in department stores," meaning they would be sold below cost to get people into the store. "He was concerned about the future of a really high-end toy store and decided to sell." Fritz Jr.'s own connection to the store didn't go beyond summer jobs as a teenager, both on the store's floor and in the warehouse, where the work was arduous. But at the end of the day he could slide from the fifth floor to the ground floor down a giant spiral slide meant for packages.

I told him I had found a profile of his father that included a description of him as a 10-year-old going down that very slide. In 1963, F.A.O. Schwarz was purchased by Parents magazine, whose founder and publisher, George Hecht, had an interest in toys and education. Parents bought the store, but not the name, for an undisclosed amount. According to the terms of the deal, it would license the name F.A.O. Schwarz for a maximum of five years, after which point the name would have to be dropped. In the meantime the new owners would pay the Schwarz family a royalty on sales. It was a very small percentage, but for the fam- ily even a very small percentage added up. After five years it was felt that the name was too important to drop, and the lease was renewed. The royalties continued. Eventually it was agreed that the name was never going to change, and it was sold outright, but part of the price was a permanent extension of the royalty agreement. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below The family put the income into a family foundation whose purpose is to fund opportunities for young people to work in the nonprofit sector. The F.A.O.

Schwarz Foundation is now run by Fritz Jr.'s son, who worked for a while as a reporter, then founded Citizen Schools, an after-school program, and whose new project is the College for Social Innovation. His name is also F.A.O. Schwarz (the fourth), but he goes by Eric. PARENTS magazine sold F.A.O. Schwarz to W.R. Grace in 1970, and by the time Peter Harris, a hotshot retail executive, and his backers bought it, in the mid-'80s for $6.5 million, the store was already several times removed from the Schwarz family's ownership. It was under Harris's management, in 1986, that F.A.O. Schwarz moved into the General Motors Building—an occa- sion for a conniption on the part of some of the store's longtime patrons. "When I heard they were leaving this building I almost had a heart attack," said a Mrs. Galen, in a 1986 article in New York. "To me, this is New York." Katharine Davis Fishman, the article's author, remarked that F.A.O.

Schwarz is "one of the last stores to evoke the New York of F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger, and Auntie Mame." In the movie Big, Robert Loggia and Tom Hanks danced on the store's oversize keyboard. Marka/Alamy The new store opened to much fanfare, and soon afterward Tom Hanks was dancing along the giant piano keys. But the underpinnings of the business were shifting. Barbie was introduced to America in 1959, G.I. Joe in 1964. The F.A.O. Schwarz mystique had been built around the exclusive: the exclusively good taste of the founder himself, touring the toymakers of Germany, France, and Switzerland; the exclusive item— a Steiff doll, for example, or a Lionel train set, or some other novelty toy that could be found only at F.A.O. It was also built around that warmer and more intangible feeling that a visit to the store was itself a unique experience. But the toy trade was rapidly becoming mass market, the territory of best-selling brands like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Meanwhile, around the country similar pressures were transforming our most illustrious department stores and grandest hotels from family concerns into numbers on a conglomerate's balance sheet. In 1990, Harris sold to a Dutch company, Vendex, which spent the next decade opening stores across the country and then sold the business to a toy retailer, Right Start. In 2003, F.A.O. Schwarz filed for not one but two bankruptcies, and in January 2004 the New York store closed. And then it came back to life, a toy with a new battery, courtesy of D.E. Shaw, a private equity firm run by a man of the same name, for $41 million. "Dave Shaw is a genius for making money, but even his partners looked at this deal and wondered what he was doing," Fritz Jr. told me. (He did point out that Shaw's mother collected antique dolls.) There followed an enormous investment in a redesign of the flagship store by the architect David Rockwell— LED lights on the ceiling that mimicked the clouds over Central Park, huge open spaces for play—and the store reopened. It survived but did not thrive.

In 2009 it was acquired by Toys R Us for, as one industry insider put it, "next to nothing." Toys R Us may yet bring back F.A.O. Schwarz in another Manhattan location. Meanwhile, it is gone but still there. Brands never really die. They just lie in state until the time is right to rise again. Perhaps F.A.O. Schwarz will be back elsewhere in the city in a year's time. Some industry figures think that the obvious move is for it to become stand-alone boutiques within Toys R Us stores. But the mass market pres- sure, in which every five-year-old covets a Minion, is greater than ever. Yet even in an era dominated by online behemoths, there is room for specialty goods: food, booze. Why not toys? Judith Ellis, who founded and runs the toy design department at the Fashion Insti- tute of Technology, pointed out that there is still a thriving market for specialty toys. "F.A.O. Schwarz would have to go back to being family-owned to attain the magic that it had, if it ever could," she said. "There is an intimate relationship that children have with their toys.

And it is the same relationship that the store owner and pub- lic have to have—a singular and personal relationship so people can return to that enchanted place of childhood." When I pointed out that the ground floor of the Toy Building was now Eataly, and shared my theory that the rise of food culture in this country almost perfectly mirrors the way so much activity in life has been submerged beneath a screen, Ellis agreed. "Everything about food is unique," she said. "Shopping for it, preparing it, sharing it. It's intimate and tactile the way your relationship with your toys was." Perhaps that is the genius of displaying so many toys beside each other: Somewhere in the mix we find that special one. Which, come to think of it, sounds like a rehearsal for life. And isn't that, in part, what toys should be? More from Town & Country: Boutique & Specialty Toys - Toys"R"Us Boutique & Specialty Toys $12.99 $6.99 Toys"R"Us Boutique & Specialty Toys Explore a selection of hundreds of boutique specialty toys at Toys"R"Us. We have an amazing assortment of specialty toys for babies, toddlers, and older children.

Find unique gift ideas in our collection of building blocks and sets, eco-friendly toys, European and international toys, religious toys, and other specialty toy categories. From classic toys like wooden blocks to the latest advances in remote controlled vehicles, we carry specialty toys that will appeal to any child's imagination. For unique games and puzzles, glass figurines, pretend play and dress up toys, and other fun specialty toys, check out the variety available at Toys"R"Us today. Collectible Dolls - Toys"R"Us Collectible Dolls Quick Shop 4.0 stars Results Per Page: Toys"R"Us Collectible Dolls Whether or not you are a born collector, the selection of collectible dolls at Toys”R”Us are just too special not to catch your eye. From Journey Girls to Barbie, our collector dolls come in a variety of designs ranging from sweet and simple, to delicate and realistic, and everything in between. You can even discover dolls created by high fashion designers, so you can choose between classic, fun, cute, or haute couture. The doll of your choice will come with special features unique to their character, as well as birthdates and personality profiles.

It is a great way to make your special little guy or girl feel that they have a truly special and unique toy that is made just for them. Find their favorite characters for a one of a kind gift that they will love and remember. Collectible dolls from Toys”R”Us are a great way to pass down memories from one generation to the next. Toys ‘R’ Us Buys F.A.O. Schwarz - The New York Times The New York Times Business Day |Toys ‘R’ Us Makes Deal for F.A.O. Schwarz Search Continue reading the main story Toys “R” Us announced early Thursday that it had bought F. A. O. Schwarz, one of the oldest toy retailers in the nation and a staple on Fifth Avenue, where the flagship store is guarded by rosy-cheeked toy soldiers. “At its core this is about one of the world’s greatest brands,” Gerald L. Storch, chairman and chief executive of Toys “R” Us, said in an interview on Wednesday after the deal was completed. “It’s a store that’s steeped in tradition as well as popular culture.” Mr.

Storch declined to say how much Toys “R” Us, the ubiquitous toy and baby supplies store, paid for F. A. O. Schwarz, a privately owned company he had wanted to acquire for several years. Founded in 1862 and visited by millions of people each year, F. A. O. Schwarz has become part of the fabric of New York City. A Christmastime visit is a tradition for many families, if only to gawk at stuffed animals that are so enormous, children cannot get their arms — let alone their minds — around them. The store also had a classic role in a scene in the 1988 movie “Big,” in which Tom Hanks uses his feet to bang out “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul” on a giant keyboard. Mr. Storch said a keyboard is still on display on the store’s second floor. “There’s not a kid or an adult alive that doesn’t remember Tom Hanks in ‘Big’ at F. A. O. Schwarz.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story There is one other F. A. O. Schwarz toy store, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where shoppers are greeted by an animated Trojan horse.

Toys “R” Us is buying both stores, as well as the company’s Web site and catalog operations. F. A. O. Schwarz stores inside Macy’s will be phased out by November. Toys “R” Us underscored that it would operate all the F. A. O. Schwarz businesses under the F. A. O. Schwarz name and maintain the hands-on shopping experience at the stores. Mr. Storch said he had no immediate plans to build any additional F. A. O. Schwarz stores. At the moment, he is focused on “making sure that the customers from these stores feel like they’re even better than they’ve been.” Sean McGowan, an analyst with Needham & Company, said F. A. O. Schwarz was once a chain of dozens of stores, “but it’s important for most people to be reminded how small F. A. O. has become.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Toys “R” Us is carrying billions of dollars of debt, though Mr. McGowan pointed out that the acquisition of F. A. O.

Schwarz “certainly shows some strength on Toys ‘R’ Us’s part.” He said the acquisition would probably not cost the company much but could help raise its profile. “The association with the premier toy brand in the world is probably a plus,” he said. Like many retailers, Toys “R” Us is using the economic downturn to take market share. This year, Toys “R” Us bought eToys.com , babyuniverse.com and the resource site ePregnancy.com . The acquisitions help the company dominate the toy segment, leaving Wal-Mart and Target as its main competitors. “We feel that New York is a very important market,” Mr. Storch said. F. A. O. Schwarz would also help it serve an international clientele, he said. F. A. O. Schwarz’s chief executive, Barry Erdos, will not remain with the company after the sale. Toys “R” Us, which has more than 1,500 stores worldwide, said it would offer positions to all of the 300 employees at the New York and Las Vegas F. A. O. Schwarz locations. Advertisement Continue reading the main story F. A. O. Schwarz was bought by D. E.

Shaw & Company in 2004. Toys “R” Us operated as a public company from 1978 until July 2005. At that time, an investment group consisting of affiliates of Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Vornado Realty Trust acquired the company for $6.6 billion. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Toys ‘R’ Us Makes Deal For Schwarz. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe FAO Schwarz: Too much fun to make money? | The Economist purchase-rights icon MORE adults than children queued for their turn on the “Big Piano”, a giant floor keyboard, in FAO Schwarz, America’s oldest toy shop, on June 1st. A couple of millennials half-heartedly tried to play “Chopsticks”, before deciding to skip instead along the enormous keys. Someone else made a valiant effort to play a few bars of “Heart and Soul”. Both the songs and the piano featured in the film “Big” starring Tom Hanks, which helped propel the shop to global fame.

Nearby, a little boy was building and customising his own toy car, with assistance from the shop’s “mechanic”. Downstairs other customers were picking out eyes and noses for their personal Muppet puppet. Red noses had sold out. A large clock played “Welcome to Our World of Toys”, the shop’s theme song. The clock will not play the song much longer. FAO Schwarz will close its doors on Fifth Avenue next month. Even for New Yorkers, well accustomed to change, the news has been a shock. The shop’s owner, Toys “R” Us, announced it was giving up its lease nearly two years early to save money, with no definite plans to open anywhere else. It remains committed to the brand, it says; but not to that building, in that place. FAO, as locals call it, has had a presence in the city since 1870. Its current spot, near an Apple Store, Bergdorf Goodman, the Plaza Hotel and Central Park, is the most expensive retail space in the world, at $3,500 per square foot ($37,700 per square metre).

But although millions of people visit the store each year, most of them tourists, few end up buying anything. They go for the experience and then buy elsewhere, more cheaply: typically on Amazon or at Walmart. Unlike other toy shops further downtown, such as the Lego Store or American Girl Place, FAO never worked out a way to monetise the fun of going there, which was thrilling even for adults. The three-storey shop was—still is—more like Toyland or Santa’s workshop than a place of business. Life-size Lego figures of Star Wars characters, giant cuddly snow-leopards and a nursery full of baby dolls seem designed to enthrall, not sell. Children of all ages are encouraged to play with the stock. As Chris Byrne, a toy-industry analyst, concluded, “Maybe they should have charged admission.”

Question: What does FAO Schwarz sell?
Answer: Toys