#Fao schwartz series
#Fao schwartz windows

In 1985, Weber decided to abandon ship and sold the company to real estate and investment firm Christiana Companies, Inc. The surviving stores included sites in Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans, as well as in a number of suburban locations. The chain of stores, which had grown to 32, soon shrank by ten as unprofitable outlets (some in hotel lobbies) were closed. By the early 1980s, Schwarz appeared to be in serious trouble. Sales were also being lost to aggressive new discount toy and department store chains. The chain ’s momentum faltered under the distant oversight of Weber, however, which saw less attention given to discovering new, innovative merchandise. By this time Schwarz had opened stores in several locations outside of New York. Grace, too, lasted for only a short while, selling the company to toy retailer Franz Carl Weber International of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1974. In 1963, it was purchased by Parent ’s Magazine, who just seven years later sold it to W.R. 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.

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.

#Fao schwartz windows

Schwarz toy displays were legendary, with the Christmas season ’s elaborately decorated windows a tourist destination in their own right. The elegant new store featured a marble staircase and a slide that went from the first floor down to the main level. 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 growing business needed new quarters just a decade later, when it was moved to Union Square.

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. 1860s OriginsįAO 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.

#Fao schwartz series

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. 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 New York store reopened on Thanksgiving Day.Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Vendex International N.V.įAO 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 Las Vegas store, located in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Place, reopened on Oct. Shaw hired architect David Rockwell to give FAO a fresh look. You need to find places that have plenty of residents with cash to burn and are magnets for out-of-towners who arrive with the express intent of being separated from their money-i.e., New York and Las Vegas. In order for a toy retailer to work, it must either be subsumed under a larger year-round retail umbrella with which it can share costs, or its stores must be unique destinations that attract a steady stream of well-heeled, impulsive customers year-round. Toy stores essentially rent real estate for 12 months so they can make money during the five weeks every year when the bulk of toy sales are conducted. Shaw’s teams of physics and computer science nerds didn’t spend hours developing algorithms of Barbie sales and running regression analysis on G.I.