November 27, 2006

10-year-olds' guide to holiday shopping in New York

Possibly violating a few child labor laws, NewYorkology took a pair of 10 year olds through Midtown on Saturday afternoon to assess the holiday toy shopping offerings for this season. Chris Langfield and Lillie Artale sized up the scene with an eye toward telling parents where to take their kids, what to avoid, and a few suggestions on what to buy.

The best news is that their favorite things were free.

The massive Lego displays at FAO Schwarz and Toys 'R' Us Times Square came in first and second place, respectively, for the favorite things they saw, ate or played with on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The displays at both stores are indeed awesome. At FAO Schwarz, there's a bigger-than-life Santa, Hagrid, Chewbacca, Darth Vader and even Batman, who's perched atop a Gotham City building with great architectural flourishes including a gargoyle. Even more impressive is an intricate, fully populated city of skyscrapers that allows cut-away views inside some of the apartments, a button that allows you to spin the propeller on a helicopter and if you bend down, you'll see the subway stations (with a subway whizzing through,) and an underground bank vault being looted by thieves.

The 10 year olds were both enthralled by the city, ("I have to buy all of it," Chris said,) but an even younger tyke walked up and pressed his face firmly to the Plexiglas and spoke rapid-fire: "Look at this! And look at that! And look at this, Dad! Look at that!"

The Toys 'R' Us Lego display may be more impressive, except that its stars (the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building with a moving King Kong,) have been in place for several years, and they're hanging up high rather than at eye-level. Toys 'R' Us also offers a "Brick Central Terminal" where you can buy Legos piece-by-piece -- perfect if you've lost some for a specific set or if you want some of the more unique pieces.

The kids wanted to ride the massive Toys 'R' Us Ferris wheel, ($4 per person,) until they saw the line. New this year at Toys 'R' Us is the hands-on Nintendo Wii station with Nintendo DS sets also available nearby. For the younger ones, there's a big hands-on Thomas the Tank Engine track.

Also too young for the 10 year olds, but impressive looking were the Big Barbie Castle and the Cabbage Patch Kids treehouse. The massive animatronic Jurassic Park dinosaur is still there, too. We took the glass catwalk over to the Willy Wonka-style candy shop. Although it's pretty to look at with all the bins of candy just begging to be eaten, (at $8.36 a pound,) lots of candy was on the sticky floor and little-kiddie hands were all over the unwrapped candy in the bins. If you worry about germs, this would be an issue.

The prices here are far more reasonable than FAO. The kids' top pick here was the Build Your Own Robotic Dog from Edu Science, priced at $29.99.

FAO Schwarz actually had a line to get in. It looked painfully long as it stretched from Fifth Avenue nearly all the way to Madison, but it moved quickly and we were inside in less than five minutes.

This may be the place you bring the kids to play rather than shop as the prices are best suited to those who don't have to ask "how much?" The kids can dance on the piano (from the movie "Big,") for free, take a turn on the free Jumpoline, or pay for a Motion Simulator Ride. One of the big draws is the Lee Middleton Newborn Nursery that is set up like an actual hospital nursery, where young ladies can choose a baby to adopt, and then sit in a big rocking chair as a woman dressed in a nurse outfit will check the baby and show the new mom how to take care of the newborn. The nurse was fully involved in the play-acting needed to make this believable and parents were blindly eating it up, agreeing to buy the babies without knowing of the $100-plus price. Chris and Lillie didn't want a doll, but were both keen to hold one and watch the nurse go through the adoption.

Elsewhere, FAO has a design-your-own Hot Wheels Factory and a design-your-own Madame Alexander Doll Factory. There's a Lionel Train set running behind Plexiglas and lots and lots of product demonstrations -- often in hallways that are way too narrow to begin with. You may want to hit this shop early in the day as carrying shopping bags here would be extremely unpleasant.

Besides the desire to buy all the Legos, the Coinstruction submarine set for $15 won the kids' approval here.

The place they actually chose to spend their money was at Build A Bear. Located on the corner of 46th Street and Fifth Avenue, this is the company's biggest store and has a number of items unique to this location.

As we walked in, the store's greeter said it would take about 30 minutes to build a bear, but we took closer to an hour and the kids would have gladly taken more time picking out clothes for their creations.

Novices to Build-A-Bear, we realized too late that there's a separate downstairs section with a different choice of bears. There are traditional teddy bears of all types, plus move tie-ins, Pooh bear, giraffes, I heart NY bears, tabby cats and other non-bear plushies. The prices are mainly in the $18 to $25 range -- but that's before they start adding the clothes, the voice box and a handful of other things. With one outfit each for the Friendly Frog, the 10 year olds spent just over $40 each. They played with them all the rest of the afternoon, and were stopped more than once by giddy women in their late teens to early 20s who wanted to know details about Build A Bear.

We made a brief stop at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue since it's practically next door to FAO and the kids wanted to play video games. That was followed by a trip to Dylan's Candy Bar, which was packed with shoppers, but spotless and filled with not just candy, but T-shirts, lunchboxes and pajamas from old fashioned candies and other designs. Great for stocking stuffers, or stuffing your mouth.

The end-of-day verdict: "FAO Schwarz is on fire."

Also see GoCityKids for reviews of other New York City toy shops.

November 27, 2006 2:37 PM in Cheap Stuff, Kids, Midtown, Shopology, Sightsology

®Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved