Homeward bound?

Neighbors are sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. You know the good ones—they'll feed your cat while you're away, lend a hand when moving the furniture or help with the odd plumbing crisis, plus watch the kids for a few minutes while you run to the store for more macaroni and cheese. The bad ones, of course, are intolerable in a way above and beyond just about anyone else in your life. A noisy neighbor is nearly inescapable, especially in an apartment building, hotel, office cubicle or anywhere else where your life includes sharing a wall, ceiling or floor with someone else for inordinate amounts of time.

The International Toy Center was one such shared space. And as the ITC slowly but methodically shuts its doors to the industry that made it such a vibrant home for so many decades, the neighborliness that made the ITC a place of community for the toy industry—its collective water cooler—is no doubt already missed by some, including me. The toy business is a familial one—people rarely leave, instead they just cycle from one manufacturer or rep firm to another until suddenly it's time to retire—and the ITC was like one of those tenement buildings where several generations lived on different floors. As such, one of the nicer things about the ITC was that at any turn there was a good chance you'd run into someone you knew—and hopefully liked—from a past project or former job. And you could always dig up some gossip just by going for a smoke.

As I write this, former ITC tenants are visiting a potential new showroom building in midtown Manhattan at Eleventh Ave. and 46th Street thanks to the work of New York Toy Tenants (NYTT), the ad hoc group of former showroom holders that have taken it upon themselves to keep the toy business community together. I haven't personally seen the building in question, and by the time you read this it may have already been ruled out as a candidate for one reason or another, but as of our press time NYTT was looking to deliver the minimum of 300,000 square feet in signed showroom leases needed by July 31 for the deal to go through in time to get the building revamped for Toy Fair 2007.

Personally, I hope it happens. And if it doesn't, let's hope another opportunity arises for the toy business to settle in a similarly one-stop location. There are too many intangible benefits from togetherness to let this latest chance slip by, even if they are just the ability to catch up with old friends by pleasant accident or showing your line to a buyer who happened to stop in purely because he noticed you while on his way to an appointment at the showroom next door.

Speaking of friends, there are three people I'd like to introduce that we expect many of you will become familiar with very soon.

Craig Hitchcock has joined Playthings as publisher. Craig comes to us most recently from PricewaterhouseCoopers, but previously spent several years at our parent company, Reed Business Information Inc., at sister publications Variety and at Furniture/Today. He is based in our office in Greensboro, N.C.

Betsy Komes is our new West Coast/Midwest account manager. Joining Playthings marks Betsy's return to the toy business. For 10 years she worked for Frank Martin & Associates, the manufacturer's rep group in Los Angeles. Betsy is based in Covina, California.

And on the editorial side we have a new managing editor, Karyn M. Peterson. Karyn comes to Playthings from Scholastic, where she edited publications targeted towards teachers. Previously, she covered the oil business and international news for Bridge News and for Knight-Ridder Financial News. Karyn is in our New York office.

They're all friendly people so if you see them, make sure to say hello!