FAO Schwarz history

In 1870 Frederick decided to strike out on his own and opened his first small store in New York on Broadway at Ninth Street.

All the counters and warehouses were emptied in 1910, a good one for toy stores.

Lionel had already made the first trolley cars; then it put a lot of money into dies and machinery, perfected an electric railway, and by 1927 was doing a business of $1 million a year, with Schwarz as its biggest retail account.

However, the great bulk of sales since 1930 has been in toys of more moderate prices.

The first branch was opened in Southampton, Long Island, in 1933; later it had to be closed because the improvement of the highways to New York made it easy for the customers to come to the main store.

FAO Schwarz display window at it’s Fifth Avenue location in 1935.Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

In 1938, the last typical year, imports represented only about 25 per cent of sales.

A breakdown of the 1939 catalogue reveals that 1,101 separate items are listed and that 42,290 of them were sold for a total of $133,108.

Read Fortune’s 1940 story about the store’s rise.

People looking in the windows at FAO Schwartz’s toy store in 1958.

In 1963, it was purchased by Parent's Magazine, who just seven years later sold it to W.R. Grace & Co.

1970: Parent's sells company to W.R. Grace & Co.

Shoppers in front of the FAO Schwarz toy store, 59th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York, May 22, 1973.Photograph by Anthony Camerano — AP

Grace, too, lasted for only a short while, selling the company to toy retailer Franz Carl Weber International of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1974.

A remote control TOMY robot offers children a cup of soda at FAO Schwarz in New York on November 30, 1985, as the Christmas shopping season began.

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 still from the 1988 Hollywood blockbuster, “Big:” Robert Loggia, left, and Tom Hanks stand on a giant piano keyboard at the FAO Schwartz toy store.

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.

Hagerty, Bob, “FAO Schwarz’s Buyer Proposes an Expansion—Dutch Firm KBB to Open More Sites in United States, Move to Europe and Japan,” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 1990.

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.

In 1995, the company introduced a line of exclusive licensed products in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History.

Neumeister, Larry, “Toy Store Employee Says Company Knew of Racial Discrimination,” Associated Press Newswires, September 30, 1998.

Fitzpatrick, Michele, “Old-Timer, Upstart Make a Play for Youth Market,” KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, November 23, 1999.

January of 2000 saw the company lose its top officer, John Eyler, to rival Toys “R” Us.

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.

Expansion plans were nonetheless ongoing, with new large locations expected to open in both San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2002.

FAO Schwarz was purchased by D. E. Shaw & Co. in 2004.

But the brand will live on in the form of FAO boutiques inside stores run by its parent company, Toys “R” Us, which bought it in 2009.