“You can get those fire engines on Schoenfeld’s on Lexington Avenue,” Macy’s confident department store Santa tells the irate mom played by Thelma Ritter in the 1947 holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street. “Only $8.50, a wonderful bargain.”
You know the plot: Macy’s hires a kind old fellow to be their store Santa Claus. But it turns out the chunky, bearded man is Santa Claus, aka Kris Kringle. And Kris doesn’t give a hoot about Macy’s desire to make tons of money selling toys during the Christmas season.
So if Macy’s doesn’t have the exact toy a child asks for, Kris tells the parents where they can find it. “I keep track of the toy market pretty closely, does that surprise you so?” Kris asks Ritter’s character, who is shocked that Macy’s Santa is sending customers to another retailer.
It’s a movie not only about the true spirit of Christmas but also the ruthless department store wars of the middle of 20th century Manhattan. The names of competing department stores referenced in the movie are all recognizable, even if the store itself no longer exists, like Gimbels and Wanamaker’s.
But Schoenfeld’s? This small toy store was definitely not a department store. It operated on the ground floor of a tenement building at 1254 Lexington Avenue between East 84th and East 85th Streets.
The German store name leads me to wonder if a local Yorkville family launched this business, but details are hard to come by. Schoenfeld’s was open as early as 1927, when this ad for a toy motorboat appeared in Scribner’s Magazine.
When Schoenfeld’s folded is a mystery, though clearly it vanished after the movie hit theaters. At least one photo of this toy emporium exists—taken around 1940 and part of the Tax Photo Collection at the NYC Department of Records & Information Services.
The photo (top image) and the Scribner’s ad are all that remain of a piece of New York City retail history, immortalized in a short line in a Christmas classic movie.
Ephemeral New York 