Farewell to FAO Schwarz!
FAO Schwarz shutters 5th Ave. shop amid tears
USUALLY AT a toy store, only the kids are crying.
But at the closing of FAO Schwarz’s Fifth Ave. flagship on Wednesday, plenty of fully grown people were dabbing their eyes in mourning.
“I’m truly sad because it’s my favorite store,” said Alexandra Kapitonova, 25, who was shopping with daughter Leela for the “real” toys sold by the 153-year-old children’s store. “Toys “R” Us has a lot of plastic toys, but I like the stuffed toys,” she added.
Outside, fans of the shop — which had been in the GM Building since 1986 and was immortalized by Tom Hanks playing an oversized piano in “Big” — took selfies with the human toy soldiers who stand at the doors.
Inside, shelves that would normally contain hordes of life-size stuffed animals quickly went bare. And plenty of customers re-created the scene from “Big,” albeit without the foot-piano skills of Hanks and Robert Loggia.
Leigh Tsang, 40, shopped with her 3-year-old daughter Julia, who grabbed for frogs and birds, but never let go of a large stuffed koala bear.
“I grew up here,” said a somber Tsang, who now lives in Hong Kong. “It’s the end of an era. I grew up with stuffed animals. Now it’s all digital.”
The retailer declared bankruptcy twice before Toys “R” Us bought it in 2009. FAO Schwarz couldn’t turn things around, and announced in May that it would close the favorite toy store of wealthy New Yorkers and souvenir-seeking out-of-towners.
Toys “R” Us says it is seeking a new location — and is rumored to be considering a site in Times Square — but FAO Schwarz shoppers don’t think any location can match the one on Fifth Ave.
“It’s kind of magical being at the corner of the park,” said shopper Annette Vey-Chilton.
The last sale at FAO Schwarz was an emotional one as
the cash register at the storied store rang up the purchase.
Cristina Echeverria, 28, an engineer from Los Angeles, bought a small mouse Christmas ornament for her mother. “Every year, I buy her ornaments,” Echeverria said, adding that her mom is a huge “Big” fan. “I really wanted to get a picture for my mom because she wanted to see the inside because of the movie “Big.”
The closure of FAO Schwarz means that Upper East Side mom-and-pop Mary Arnold Toys is now the oldest toy shop in America.
The Lexington Ave. store has been in business since 1931.