FAO Schwarz Returns To NYC, New Store Opens At Rockefeller Center
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Just in time for the holiday shopping season - a legendary toy store is reopening in New York.
Three years after it closed its beloved toy store on Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz has opened a new flagship store in Rockefeller Center with a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday.
For more than 150 years, FAO Schwarz was known in New York City for its classy and sometimes extravagantly expensive toys. The fantasyland store it opened on Fifth Avenue in 1986 was a tourist attraction, replete with its own theme song, doormen who looked like palace guards and a musical clock tower. Financial problems at the parent company and rising rents closed that store in 2015, but FAO is now pulling back from the worst financial precipice since it was founded in 1862.
In recent weeks at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, workers drilled, hammered and sawed 24 hours a day to get the new store ready. Employees filled shelves with hundreds of plush animals that have long defined the brand — bears, bunnies, elephants, chicks and more. The big entrance clock tower has returned. And on the second level of the 20,000-square-foot space is a giant piano keyboard mat like the one on which Tom Hanks danced to "Heart and Soul" in the 1988 film "Big."
There is also a toy grocery store where children can shop among artificial produce, complete with small carts, a checkout counter and kitchen supplies. Live magic shows will be staged nearby, next to a spot for assembling custom remote-control cars. A 27-foot-tall rocket ship teems with stuffed bear astronauts.
"We are about experiences. That's what's different from other toy stores," said David Niggli, FAO's chief merchandising officer.
FAO Schwarz has gone through multiple corporate takeovers in recent years as retailers struggled to adapt to online sales. It was purchased in 2002 by Right Start Inc., which filed for bankruptcy twice. Toys "R'' Us was the next owner. It sold the FAO name to the California-based ThreeSixty Brands in 2016 before recently declaring bankruptcy itself.
There are a few extravagant items to be had in the new store but plenty of modestly priced items, too.
"There's always going to be some of those over-the-top items. I think that's part of what you come to FAO to see. It's part of the magic," Niggli said.
The most luxurious item on sale could be a working, child-size model of a Mercedes Benz encrusted with 44,000 Swarovski crystals. The base price for this toy car is a whopping $25,000.
"That's the core of FAO. It's the classics plus the 'Oh, wow' things you've never seen before," Niggli added.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
