How a Baltimore toy bazaar became a New York landmark
FAO Schwarz began in 1862, when the German immigrant Frederick August Otto Schwarz opened a toy bazaar in Baltimore. The business has had a New York store since 1870.
The name moved uptown with the money over the next century and settled on Fifth Avenue, where the store stopped being a shop and became a stop on the tour. Reporting the closure in 2015, NBC News called FAO Schwarz the oldest toy store in the United States and "a retailer once considered accessible only to the rich."
Both halves of that description were accurate. The Fifth Avenue store sold stuffed animals taller than the children looking at them, and the prices matched the ceiling height.
It also collected screen time, appearing in the 1988 Tom Hanks film Big and in Woody Allen's 1995 film Mighty Aphrodite. That is why the 2015 closing ran on national news, and why the question people still type is whether anything survived it.
Why did FAO Schwarz leave Fifth Avenue in 2015?
It was a rent story rather than a toy story. Toys R Us said in May 2015 that FAO Schwarz would give up its three-level, 45,000 square foot Fifth Avenue space, and the doors shut on July 15, 2015, ahead of a lease that ran to 2017.
The company did not blame shoppers or the internet. The move was "due to the continuing rising costs of operating a retail location on Fifth Avenue in New York City," Toys R Us said in the 2015 statement NBC News reported.
The arithmetic is unforgiving on that block. A store whose merchandise is priced in tens of dollars has to sell a great deal of it to cover rent on a stretch of Fifth Avenue shared with luxury houses that take more for one handbag than a family spends on a cart of toys.
The owner at the time was Toys R Us, which had bought FAO Schwarz in 2009. It said it was hunting for a new Midtown Manhattan home for the flagship. It never opened one.
Who owns FAO Schwarz today?
ThreeSixty Group runs it. In October 2016, Toys R Us sold the FAO Schwarz brand to ThreeSixty Group, a product design and marketing company based in Irvine, California. Terms were not disclosed.
The arrangement is a license rather than a clean sale of everything. WWD reported in 2026 that the FAO Schwarz name and trademarks sit with the FAO Schwarz Family Foundation and are licensed to ThreeSixty Group, which owns and operates the stores. ThreeSixty presents itself as the company behind FAO Schwarz, Sharper Image and Vornado.
CBS News, covering the 2016 sale, noted that Toys R Us had bought FAO Schwarz in 2009 and then closed the Fifth Avenue store to save money. Selling the name was the last act of that decision.
If the pattern sounds familiar, it is the one behind Sharper Image: buy a name people trust, keep the name, drop the expensive stores. The plan announced in 2016 was to design new toys under the FAO Schwarz name and build FAO Schwarz experiences inside other retailers' buildings. A decade later that is the business.
How many FAO Schwarz stores are left in the US?
Ten US locations in 2026: one full-size flagship and nine shops inside Nordstrom.
The flagship is the 20,000 square foot store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, which opened on November 16, 2018, three years after the Fifth Avenue store went dark. It sits about ten blocks south of the old building, on the plaza where the Christmas tree goes up.
In late June 2026, FAO Schwarz opened a 5,000 square foot shop inside the Nordstrom flagship at 57th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, its first new store in the city in more than a century. Nordstrom and FAO Schwarz also announced eight Jewel Box shops, a store within a store, at Aventura Mall in Miami, Bellevue Square in Washington, Brea Mall and South Coast Plaza in California, Garden State Plaza in New Jersey, NorthPark in Dallas, Oak Brook in Illinois and Fashion Valley in San Diego. The NorthPark shop opened on August 21, 2026, and Bellevue followed days later.
So the count depends on what counts as a store. One if you mean a building with FAO Schwarz on the outside. Ten if you count the shops inside Nordstrom. That is the shape a lot of surviving mall names now take, including the Disney Store.
Is the dance-on piano from Big still in the store?
Yes, in a rebuilt form. When the Rockefeller Plaza store opened in November 2018, the walking piano came with it, installed on the second level rather than tucked into a corner of the sales floor.
The Associated Press described it in 2018 as a 20 foot mat with 60 keys, reflected on the ceiling above so people standing in the plaza could watch the keys light up under the dancers' feet. The store sold replicas of the mat for $128 that year.
What it is not is the exact instrument Tom Hanks used. Versions of the walking piano have been built, replaced and rebuilt over four decades, and the one in the store in 2026 is a current model, not a movie prop under glass. The Nordstrom shop in Manhattan carries the idea forward with a dance-on piano of its own, alongside toy soldiers and plush animals.
Where to find one today: the collecting happens around the store's own merchandise. Old FAO Schwarz teddy bears, shopping bags, catalogs and the boxed replica pianos the store sold for $128 in 2018 turn up regularly through Etsy's vintage FAO Schwarz listings, where condition and the original box drive most of the price difference.
What the Nordstrom deal says about the brand
The partnership announced on June 23, 2026 is the clearest statement yet of what FAO Schwarz is now: a name that fills a department store's toy floor rather than a chain that pays its own Midtown rent.
"Nordstrom is a perfect partner for FAO Schwarz, with its long tradition of beautiful stores, unique and quality products," said David Niggli, the chief merchandising officer of FAO Schwarz, in the 2026 announcement.
Nordstrom framed it as traffic. "FAO Schwarz represents imagination and joyful discovery, which aligns naturally with how we think about creating meaningful experiences for our customers," said Tacey Powers, the Nordstrom executive who runs shoes, kids and home, in the same release.
The mechanics favor FAO Schwarz. WWD reported in 2026 that the Manhattan shop is a concession "owned, operated and merchandised by FAO Schwarz," so the toy company keeps control of the floor without signing its own lease. Target announced a multiyear exclusive with FAO Schwarz in September 2022 covering more than 120 toys priced from $9.99 to $149.99, and Retail Dive reported in 2026 that neither company would say where that arrangement now stands.
It is a smaller business than the one that closed in 2015, and a more durable one. The brand has outlived two owners and the building most Americans picture when they hear the name.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FAO Schwarz still open?
Yes. FAO Schwarz is still open, with its global flagship at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, which opened on November 16, 2018 after the Fifth Avenue store closed on July 15, 2015. Since late June 2026 there is also an FAO Schwarz shop inside the Nordstrom flagship at 57th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, plus eight Jewel Box shops in Nordstrom stores elsewhere in the country.
Who owns FAO Schwarz now?
FAO Schwarz is run by ThreeSixty Group, a product design and marketing company based in Irvine, California, which bought the brand from Toys R Us in October 2016 for an undisclosed sum. WWD reported in 2026 that the FAO Schwarz trademarks are held by the FAO Schwarz Family Foundation and licensed to ThreeSixty Group, which owns and operates the stores. Toys R Us had owned FAO Schwarz since 2009.
Is the big piano still at FAO Schwarz?
Yes. The dance-on piano made famous by Tom Hanks in the 1988 film Big is part of the FAO Schwarz store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, on the second level since the store opened on November 16, 2018. The Associated Press reported in 2018 that the mat ran 20 feet with 60 keys and was reflected on the ceiling so the keys could be seen lighting up from the plaza outside. The FAO Schwarz shop inside Nordstrom in Manhattan, open since June 2026, has one as well.