The Buzz

What goes around, comes around — at least for FAO Schwarz.

The legendary New York toy merchant is returning to Lexington in 2009 as a department at Macy’s in Fayette Mall.

It’s all part of a plan to open 685 FAO Schwarz “stores” in Macy’s department stores nationwide by the end of 2009.

A new FAO Schwarz opened at Florence Mall on Sept. 24 and at Kenwood Towne Centre in Cincinnati on Sept. 26, the company said.

“Other FAO Schwarz within Macy’s will be coming to Louisville and Lexington, Ky., in 2009,” it added.

Those who were in Lexington from 1976 to 1983 might remember the FAO Schwarz store on the first level of the Lexington Center Shops.

The biggest attractions were the huge stuffed animals and the electric train that ran around the top of the store’s outer walls. It had no ceiling.

Shoppers and downtown workers would stand along the rail on the second level of the mall to look down at the toys in the store and watch the train.

In the end, the store’s relatively small size and large toy inventory contributed to its closing, the company said.

“We can’t show our range of merchandise in such a small store,” an FAO Schwarz executive told the Herald-Leader in January 1984.

Maybe Macy’s will bring better luck to FAO Schwarz the second time around.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Marketing, Modern life. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.