When Hiro Hirano had his first child 20 years ago, he unfortunately found that the toys produced by the large manufacturers probably went a lot further toward stimulating the minds of the people who made the toys rather than the people who were meant to play with them. “It’s simplicity that stimulates children to create their own world,” he says, so he removed himself from the world he occupied on Madison Avenue as an advertising executive and reconstructed a new one in the form of a wooden toy store in Mt. Kisco, New York.
Mr. Hirona gave up his career in Manhattan and opened up Wood Workers Toys with his wife 15 years ago. Hoping not only to inspire creative thinking in the mind of children, they also wanted to offer an alternative to the modern plastic toy, which often enough, he believes, carries a half-life lasting not much longer than the broken seal on the cardboard box. In contrast, “Rocking horses, building blocks or a doll house,” he says, “you can pass on to your grandchildren.”
Unless sailing Noah’s Ark, which sells reasonably at 38 dollars, isn’t their drop in the ocean the way steering his own ship fits Mr. Hirano. He compares the life he gave up on Madison Avenue to being like the first mate on the QEII. You’re treated well with king sized accommodations but he says, “I’d still rather go on my own small boat.”
In midtown, about half his colleagues wished him luck while the rest thought he would end up going down with his wooden ship, but his wife fully supported him given her enthusiasm for the idea. Ryoka Hirano says she did not live a life of privilege as a child and incorporated the basics in her environment as objects of play. “Everything comes from the Earth – sticks, dirt, stones and all the natural things around me were my toys,” she says.
A step up into the present might mean a wooden pull dog (34.95) or wooden work bench (79.95) for a boy falling between naughty and nice, but a little girl who had been undeniably good for goodness sake could never have expected the 559 dollar European doll house when Wood Workers first opened. “In the beginning, he didn’t have any wooden doll furniture,” says Ms. Hirano, as she had to convince her husband that wooden toys weren’t just trucks and trains.
Today, the kitchen set shares equal status with the wooden dump truck, but child safety remains the most important aspect of their business from both sides of the toy aisle. These toys are durable so there’s little chance of pieces becoming lodged anywhere else other than where they originated. That doesn’t mean a toddler won’t still try to wrap his mouth around a wooden block, but since all toys are coated in non-toxic material, only the termites might be offended.
No such reports have made their way back to 37A South Moger Avenue, but bugs infesting a toy website would never effect the Hirano’s search for the most unique toys from the world over. It couldn’t because “some local toy maker in Germany,” asserts Mr. Hirano, “doesn’t have a website,” as his search takes him to small toy stores in places like New Zealand, Argentina, Thailand and Hong Kong.
But Mr. Hirano doesn’t approach his search for toys with a mindset which brought a “Big” Tom Hanks success in his 1987 film. The child-like Hanks would quite naturally fall for a remote control car or trendy Game Boy, but be unable to recognize the quality and long range importance of a wooden train.
That’s why, in the name of parents, Mr. Hirano likes to paraphrase the logline, “Our best customer is an educated customer,” but that doesn’t mean he has no expectations of creating consumers worthy of the toys they played with as children. Little by little, over the years, “these kids, when they become adults,” he says, “they remember,” and hopefully will pass the tradition – and maybe even the toys – onto their kids.
Rich Monetti interview of Hiro Hirano