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Apple Store may be coming to NYC's Grand Central Terminal
As if it wasn't busy enough already, Apple may be looking to build a retail store right in the middle of New York's Grand Central Terminal, according to reports. There hasn't been any public sign that the company wants to open a new store there yet (and there is a public process companies have to go through to submit proposals and gain approval), but "reliable sources" are apparently saying Apple wants to start the process. It might sound like a strange idea to put an Apple Store in a train station, especially one that's fairly close to several existing Apple Stores. But the Fifth Ave. store is reportedly overcrowded already (even though it's Apple's only 24-hour location), and obviously Grand Central Terminal is prime real estate for well-heeled shoppers, considering all of the commuters that come through from Westchester, Connecticut and other suburbs every day. I doubt the space will be cheap, but Apple's got some of the deepest pockets around. No word yet on how long it would take for an Apple Store to get approved and built, if indeed the rumors are true and Apple is trying to get in there at all. We'll stay tuned. If the store does come, it would join the five existing (plus one hypothetical) stores in the five boroughs of New York City, continuing the Big Apple's dominance as the densest urban concentration of Apple retail. [via MacRumors]
Fifth Ave Apple Store is NYC's fifth most-photographed location
Philip DeWitt at Apple 2.0 is reporting that Apple's Fifth Avenue retail store is now New York City's fifth most-photographed location. The ranking is according to a year-old analysis of 35 million Flickr images by Cornell University students on a university supercomputer. So which four landmarks are beating the Fifth Ave store? The Empire State Building, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and Grand Central Station, in that order. It's hard to believe the Apple Store beat the Statue of Liberty (ranked 7th). Cornell's study can be read here (PDF). It's an interesting list of the most photographed cities and landmarks around the world. Even when you take all the landmarks of the entire planet into account, the Fifth Avenue Apple Store is still ranked 28th globally. Ironically enough Peter Bohlin, the man who designed the hottest computer store on the planet, has been good-naturedly called "a total computer illiterate" by his Philadelphia partner. When Steve Jobs met with Bohlin they wondered how to turn the property, part of which was underground, into a space people would want to enter. The answer, Bohlin told Philly.com, was to make the cube into a giant skylight. "There has always been something magical about a glass building." And thus a star -- er, cube -- was born.
