How a Baltimore toy bazaar became a New York institution
FAO Schwarz started in 1862, when Frederick August Otto Schwarz opened a toy bazaar in Baltimore. The New York half of the story began eight years later.
On September 16, 1870, Schwarz ran an advertisement for his new toy and fancy store at 765 Broadway in Manhattan, asking people to come and shop. The Library of Congress files that advertisement as the start of the New York business that every later FAO Schwarz store descended from.
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 its 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. FAO Schwarz said in May 2015 that it would give up its three-level, 45,000 square foot Fifth Avenue space, and it shut the doors on July 15, 2015, leaving its lease early.
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," FAO Schwarz 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 sell a single handbag for more than a cart of toys.
The owner at the time was Toys R Us, which had acquired FAO Schwarz in 2009. When the closure was announced, the company said it was hunting for a new Midtown Manhattan home for the flagship. It never opened one.
Who owns FAO Schwarz in 2026?
ThreeSixty Group owns it. On October 4, 2016, Toys R Us sold the FAO Schwarz brand to ThreeSixty Group, a company based in Irvine, California that designs and sells toys, home goods and other products. Terms were not disclosed.
CBS News, covering the sale in 2016, noted that Toys R Us had bought FAO Schwarz in 2009 and then shuttered the store to save money. Selling the name was the last act of that decision.
ThreeSixty Group already ran a shelf of recognizable American brands, including The Sharper Image, Animal Planet and Discovery Kids. If the pattern sounds familiar, it is the same one behind Sharper Image: buy a name people trust, keep the name, drop the expensive stores.
The plan announced in 2016 was to design a new collection of toys under the FAO Schwarz name and to build in-store experiences for other retailers, recreating a piece of the famous store inside somebody else's shop. A decade later that is exactly what the company is doing, at scale.
How many FAO Schwarz stores are left in the US?
One full-size American store, plus a growing set of shops inside other retailers' buildings.
The flagship is at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, and it opened on November 16, 2018, three years after the Fifth Avenue store went dark. It sits about ten blocks south of the old location, on the plaza where the Christmas tree goes up.
In June 2026, FAO Schwarz opened a second New York shop inside the Nordstrom flagship 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 format, in Nordstrom locations elsewhere in the country, and FAO Schwarz product went on sale at Nordstrom.com beginning in June 2026.
So the answer to "how many FAO Schwarz stores are left" 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, which moved most of its selling into Target and its own website.
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 dance-on piano came with it, installed on the second floor rather than tucked into a corner of the sales floor.
CNBC reported in 2018 that the new piano was given a mirrored ceiling above it, so people standing in the plaza could watch the keys light up under the dancers' feet, with the skating rink visible below. It is a piece of 1988 nostalgia re-engineered as a window display.
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 on the second floor in 2026 is a current model, not a movie prop under glass.
The Nordstrom shops carry the idea forward too. The New York Nordstrom location that opened in 2026 includes a dance-on piano of its own, alongside toy soldiers and plush animals.
Where to find one today: the store's own merchandise is where the collecting happens. Old FAO Schwarz teddy bears, shopping bags, catalogs and the boxed dance-mat pianos sold under the brand 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 2026 partnership is the clearest statement yet of what FAO Schwarz is now: a name that fills a department store's toy aisle rather than a chain that pays its own rent.
"Nordstrom is a perfect partner for FAO Schwarz, with its long tradition of beautiful stores, unique and quality products, and its commitment to the best in customer service," 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 vice president who runs shoes, kids and home, in the same 2026 release.
Translated, both companies get something the other cannot buy easily. FAO Schwarz gets floor space in stores that already have shoppers in them, without signing a Fifth Avenue lease. Nordstrom gets a reason for families to walk into a department store in a decade when fewer of them do.
It is a smaller business than the one that closed in 2015, and a more durable one. The brand has outlived its own bankruptcy, 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 American 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 June 2026 there is also an FAO Schwarz shop inside the Nordstrom flagship in Manhattan, plus eight Jewel Box shops in Nordstrom stores elsewhere in the country.
Who owns FAO Schwarz now?
FAO Schwarz is owned by ThreeSixty Group, a product design and marketing company based in Irvine, California, which bought the brand from Toys R Us on October 4, 2016 for an undisclosed sum. Toys R Us had owned FAO Schwarz since 2009 and closed the Fifth Avenue store in 2015. ThreeSixty Group also owns The Sharper Image, Animal Planet and Discovery Kids.
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, where it has been installed on the second floor since the store opened on November 16, 2018. CNBC reported in 2018 that the rebuilt piano was fitted with a mirrored ceiling so the keys can be seen lighting up from the plaza outside.