The Childrens General Store

Very cute store with some great games/​toys for kids that are unique and hard to find. Owner cares a lot about carrying the best and safest products.

Excellent place to buy gifts for the little ones. I come here all the time for my friends children.
For a more detailed review, please click the link below:
–Sarah

Perfect little store with unique gifts. As a toy store should be!!! Not corporate! The clerk is friendly and very helpful!

What a find!!!
I needed 3 gifts, for 3 lovely little girls. I found The Childrens General Store on Unilocal and rushed over. They have a great selection of gifts, and a lot of educational toys which I always like to see. The shop attend was friendly and very helpful with making suggestions. I tend to get overwhelmed when there is a lot to choose from, and she was a godsend that day to help me narrow down what I was looking for.
They wrapped the gifts beautifully and I was on my way. I will for sure go back here for future gifts. Great neighborhood store! Join me in supporting them!

Fantastic little place with old school, quality toys. Premium on space in manhattan necessarily limits the store’s selection, but this place earns 5 stars due to the helpfulness of the knowledgeable owner. Great experience shopping for gifts for 1 – 4 year olds whose parents we were visiting!

An old-​fashioned, full-​service store that we don’t have enough of these days!
I needed to purchase a gift for my 4 year old cousin. Wanting to get her something non-​generic, this place was certainly a breath of fresh air. The very friendly and helpful staff listened to me while I explained her interests, and then showed me the myriad options they stocked. I ended up purchasing a detailed coloring book and a high-​quality puzzle, which my cousin really liked. Prices were very reasonable, too.
Highly recommended!

Great local store with friendly service. The owner is always helpful if you need suggestions for gifts. I like how they sell wooden toys and other green products instead of the typical Fisher Price items you often see for kids. Yes, you’ll probably be spending a little more here than at the chain stores, but love the extra touch of free gift wrapping and the hand stamped bag (especially when I shop last minute for a present).

A thoughtful, knowledgeable owner and an amazing variety of high quality toys means I can always find something for my nieces & nephews’ birthday & holiday gifts. Thanks to the great service and gift wrapping option the process is simple, efficient and fast-​no shopping fatigue. This week I shopped for 12 kids and was able to get in & get out with wrapped gifts in less than ½ hour.

Cute store with good selection. I was able to do all my Christmas shopping for my nephew who is a toddler. I got 4 items and spent roughly $ ⁵⁵⁄₆₀. They also do complimentary gift wrapping! Very nice touch.

High-​quality toys (but not cheap). Not rip-​offs — you get what you pay for here. We got some beautiful alphabet blocks. There’s a wide selection, including Lincoln Logs! (But they’re not called Lincoln Logs anymore). It’s really good stuff — read Samantha S.‘s review, she says it better than I.

Unfriendly, unpleasant owner/​manager who does not seem to like kids or want them in the store. We were thinking of buying something but really hated his attitude. Seems that he wants to sell stuff, if only all those pesky kids stayed out of his store and did not ask any questions. I am not coming back.

These people really care about what they do. The selection is like a well curated exhibit, The selection has many things you won’t find at chain — or large stores. They are knowledgeable and helpful with focus on a happy customer — I’ve been buying new born baby gifts here for years. It’s a great un-​spoiled neighborhood store that’s always a pleasure to visit. — Its worth a special trip.

Found this place on Unilocal.I expected the store to be bigger, but I guess it had everything i needed. Michael was so nice and helped me find what I needed. Prices seemed reasonable. I will be going back

Wonderful little children’s toy store hidden away up on the UES. This place is like a throwback to a time when toys weren’t all digitalized and computerized. Dolls, books, sock puppets, learning toys, blocks, baby gifts, board games, stuffed animals, etc.
Prices are decent for the area, and the place is packed from floor to ceiling with items. Nothing is really ever on sale here though. Definitely the type of place to browse around if close by to pick out that perfect gift for a small child, and if you hate the Toys R Us chain store mentality. Each time I drop in here I discover something different, and also find some nostalgic toys from my childhood.

Went for a hula hoop. Got that and an adorable wooden toy for my son. Beautiful store!

The Anti-​Toys-​R-​Us. I mean that in a good way.
On the one hand, you won’t find movie tie-​ins, Barbie dolls, or anything digital. One the other hand, you will find well-​chosen baby gifts, a stellar selection of board games, and craft kits that won’t disappoint the minute you open them.
In other words, some intelligent, child-​oriented human being tried all this stuff, and it passed muster.
This is a small store, and I often see strollers left outside the door because bringing them in can be a pain. So take a pass if your toddler is in a particularly destructive phase or if your baby is asleep in your mega-​pram.
For school-​age kids, though, this place is heaven. Because of its size, it’s not overwhelming, and because every square inch is packed, each surface and wall holds something interesting.
Shallow shelves on the far wall hold beautifully detailed miniature animals at $ 5 a pop; the middle island has tiny tchotchkes (Chinese yo-​yos, mini decks of cards); creative window displays enliven the whole block; and free, attractive gift-​wrapping is always offered.
The cons are minor: It’s not comprehensive (this might be a pro, if you are on the same page as the owner). There are few bargains. Sometimes the classical music here is just wrong; one time, it sounded like Wagnerian opera.

I received some unusual gifts from here, a sock monkey, a pirate finger puppet and a pink and blue mobile, but no gift receipt, sigh.
Now not to sound ungrateful, but i much prefer to make my own handmade sock monkeys, and the mobile was cute but powder pink and baby blue (just a little tip to gifters out there, if the soon to be parents aren’t telling you the gender of their baby it just might be because they despise powder pink and baby blue and want you to venture out onto other spokes of the color wheel!).
When I walked up to the counter to return it and told them that i had no receipt they said they would gladly check to see what was returnable for me, fortunately mr. sock monkey was (did i mention mr. sock monkey also had a strangely inappropriately protuberant tail?) but alas the mobile wasn’t, whatsmore, when I said the mobile was really what I wanted to return the sales clerk got huffy and told me ‘well it’s one of the nicest things in the store’… hmm interesting then why was it on final sale? and if its so nice please feel free to take it back so i can exchange it for something ~I~ like.
In the end I exchanged mr. sock monkey for some handsome wooden abc blocks, but returned home with the unloved mobile. At least there’s always regifting…

I can’t believe I’m the first to review Children’s General Store in the UES! I didn’t even know there was a toy store in Yorkville. It’s on the quieter part of E 91^st St so I didn’t really notice it before. This toy store carries a really wide rage of new and classic toys for all ages at a decent price. I was pleasantly surprised at all the toys tucked away at various nook and crannies! Bit crowded with all the fun treasures but then, I suppose they need to maximize their space. They seem like they have almost everything from finger puppets to cute stuffed animals to kites to board games to just about anything. I don’t think they’re open very late but if you get a chance, it’s definitely a fun place to browse. It was a fun place to take a trip down the memory lane. (I picked up a super cute bib set, adorable yet comical stuffed monkey and a bath toy fishing set… All of which were a complete HIT with the 2 year old I was shopping for.)