It’s the crown jewel of Cupertino’s 10th anniversary in retailing: Grand Central Apple, a backdrop for the tech giant’s largest site that’s flooded with history. Although the site isn’t complete, images are leaking out, including an homage to the setting — a huge ticker above the main passageway like those from yesteryear. Instead of arrivals and departures, however, the sign urges visitors to grab an iPod for that long commute. So cool!
The retail location, larger than Apple’s Covent Garden site, was expected to open in time for Black Friday. However, that could be cutting things close, given the huge shopping day is just around the corner. In fact, new reports suggest a December 9th opening. Still, the images are enough to keep interest high.
Apple has a knack for taking historical sites and putting its own unique touch on the architecture without overwhelming the overall setting. Like the Covent Garden store, the Grand Central location uses its setting — the iconic grand marble staircase, the powerful century-long history, and a rich cultural fondness burnished by countless Hollywood films — to embue Apple’s own products with the same emotions evoked by the locale. The only comment left is: All aboard!
More images of the railway-style tickers at 9to5Mac.
Update: Thanks to the guys at Techfootnote, we now have video:
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
