Beloved toy store FAO Schwarz makes its comeback

NEW YORK — Three years after it closed its beloved toy store on Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz is making a return to New York.

A new FAO opens Friday in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, about 10 blocks from its former home near Central Park.

For more than 150 years, FAO Schwarz was known for its classy and sometimes extravagantly expensive toys.

The toy palace it opened on Fifth Avenue in 1986 was a tourist attraction.

The new version will be smaller, but will have familiar attractions, including a musical clock tower and the giant piano keyboard mat on which Tom Hanks danced in the film “Big.”

Also on sale: A crystal-encrusted toy car for $25,000.

Pop-up FAO shops are also opening in England, Spain and Australia.

Verena Dobnik, The Associated Press

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