If Alice’s wonderland was a toy store, then the hidden door into paradise would be the glass door to the former General Motors building on 5th Avenue, at the corner of 58^th Street – flanked by two men in uniforms, similar to those of the British guard.

 

Inside stuffed animals and board games are piled up and tin soldier armies are stringed together. The heart of the store is the big hall: where more than 20,000 lights are blinking, little remote controlled toy-monkeys are walking on tightropes and children are playing “All my little ducklings” on the giant piano keys; or upsetting their stomach in the candy store "FAO Schweetz".

 

The idea for New York’s biggest toy store was made up by Frederick August Otto Schwarz from Westphalia in 1862. He founded FAO Schwarz with a first subsidiary in Baltimore. In 1870 the store moved to Manhattan and only in 1986 it arrived at its present location on 5^th Avenue.