Toy Tokyo

East Village

New York City

Art & Culture

Funky Shop for Japanese Toys, Novelties and Other Collectibles

Toy Tokyo Toy Store Collectibles East Village

About Toy Tokyo

& why it made the Carpe City list

This fun and funky toy store offers unique vintage toys, collectibles, model kits, games, dolls, and stuffed toys.
Much of the inventory is imported from Japan and Hong Kong.
Some of the store’s most popular items are from the Godzilla collection. Toy Tokyo sells all kinds of rare and collectible Godzilla merchandise, everything from full-body Godzillas, to replicas of his head, to build-it-yourself models. Some of the figurines are rare and sell for over $600.
Toy Tokyo has a Godzilla figurine signed by Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in 12 films, including the original 1954 Godzilla.
Fun fact: Toy Tokyo’s owner Israel “Lev” Levarek sold his personal Batman figurine collection to open the store in 2000.
The collection changes regularly; you can check out their website and Instagram for updates.

Carpe City Trivia

Which famous artist traded Astro Boy figurines for his signature?

One day, a few years after Toy Tokyo opened, Levarek got a request from someone interested in his Astro Boy figurines. This someone ended up being Brian Donnelly, a.k.a KAWS, a famous artist whose work centers around creating paintings and figurines of original characters or cartoons from popular culture. KAWS offered to sign some of the figurines of his that Levarek had in the store in return for the Astro Boy collection. Still today, some of these signed KAWS figurines are on display in the store and sell for thousands!