Rockefeller Center and FAO Schwarz
After a short stroll through Bryant Park this past weekend, Sheila, Lukey, Kenzie and I walked up the few blocks to Rockefeller Center. We walked up Sixth Avenue so we approached Rockefeller Center from that side.
We had hoped to bring the kids to FAO Schwarz when we were here this past Christmas but the line to get into the store was ridiculously long so we aborted that part of our Christmas plan. This day was a far better day. It was much more quiet which allowed us to play with whatever we wanted in the store!
As we walked up 49th Street from Sixth Avenue, we passed the Rainbow Room entrance.
One of the reasons we had hoped that the store would be relatively quiet is because we wanted the kids to be able to play a bit on the giant keyboard, if FAO Schwarz still had that giant toy made famous by the movie "Big". If the store was crowded, then gaining access to this toy would be tough to do.
Fortunately, when we walked up to the keyboard, one guy was putting his shoes on after his turn playing on the keyboard and nobody was waiting in line so the kids had instant access to this giant keyboard! Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the kids on the keyboard because I was busy shooting video. I'll add a video in another blog entry soon.
FAO Schwarz sells a rather lame 70 inch, one octave keyboard "mat" for around $50 but I don't think the giant keyboard is for sale anymore. If I remember correctly, the original cost of the giant keyboard was somewhere in the vicinity of $250,000. Who would have the room for it in their house anyway? Certainly not us!
I just realized that I could capture a couple of screenshots from the video clips so I did that...
This toy, below, was a more modern Etch-a-Sketch type of drawing board called the Drawing Light Designer (I think). This large tablet uses glow-in-the-dark pens to draw rather than two cumbersome knobs. It is considerably larger than the old Etch-a-Sketches and it seems to be a toy that was better thought-out.
When I was a kid I hated trying to use the two knobs on the very basic Etch-a-Sketch to draw. I was an above-average artist but I found the rotating knobs to be too much of a frustration and obstacle to enjoy the Etch-a-Sketch. This new drawing board at FAO Schwarz would be more enjoyable although I'm sure I would tire of it quickly and move back to a more traditional medium. It is pretty cool if you like glow-in-the-dark drawings though.
I'm glad we had this opportunity to bring the kids to FAO Schwarz. The weather was great and we had a lot of fun. Now they just need to watch the movie "Big"... and perhaps "Splash" to understand my reference to the Madison Avenue street sign.
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