R.I.P. Apple’s original San Francisco store

SAN FRANCISCO — The iconic glass staircase is gone. The interior is being gutted. The Apple logos have been covered up.

Rest in peace, Apple’s original flagship store in San Francisco, which opened to great fanfare just a dozen years ago. Apple recently opened a crazily detailed store just two blocks away on Union Square, and the old one is being rapidly dismantled.

Cult of Mac cub reporter Lyle Kahney rode his bike downtown to snap a few photos of the old San Francisco Apple Store before it’s completely gone.

Sayonara stairs

Apple’s fifth flagship

It was 2004 and Apple was rapidly expanding its retail chain, which it had started just three years before. The iPod was taking off like a rocket, attracting hordes of new customers eager to check out Apple’s other products. Pundits had initially predicted the chain of stores would be an embarrassing failure, but they were an almost overnight success.

The original San Francisco Apple Store was a big deal. It was Cupertino’s fifth “flagship” store — a series of bigger, grander stores shaped like giant glass cubes or with magnificent glass staircases. The flagship stores were cathedrals compared to Apple’s smaller shops, which formed the backbone of the 76-strong chain at the time.

Steve Jobs, two mayors and hundreds of overnighters

Steve Jobs personally attended the San Francisco Apple Store’s grand opening in February 2004. He was joined by a bunch of city dignitaries, including two mayors. Dozens of people camped out overnight to be first inside. (The late Gary Allen, who chronicled the growth of Apple’s chain at his now defunct site IFOAppleStore, has a nice Flickr gallery of the grand opening.)

But as Apple has grown ever bigger and richer, its original flagship stores don’t seem so grand any more. The company last month opened a far bigger store overlooking Union Square in the retail heart of San Francisco. It’s just a couple of blocks up the street from the original site, but it’s worlds away.

The new store is much bigger and airier, with 42-foot sliding glass doors and a world-class view of the plaza. It makes the old store look cramped and shabby in comparison. The new store is much more befitting the company’s top-of-the-world stature.

Preservation, Willie Brown-style

There’s a funny, under-reported story about the old Stockton Street store.

Steve Jobs wanted to build an ultra-modern glass and steel box, but the design would have grossly violated San Francisco’s restrictive historic preservation rules.

The city’s mayor at the time, Willie Brown, an infamous wheeler-dealer, wanted the new store to revitalize a downmarket stretch of retail. So he gave Jobs a quick lesson in how to deal with City Hall:

“You know, Steve,” I told him, “no one says you have to preserve the entire building.”

“How in the hell am I going to keep a part of the building and still put in my design?” he asked.

“Easy. Just promise to preserve a significant part of the building.”

“And what significant part would that be?”

“How about the back wall?”

It’s not clear if the historic back wall will be spared the current demolition.