Apple bringing back personal shopping for controversial new Madison Avenue store in NYC
Customers at Apple's forthcoming Madison Avenue store on Manhattan's Upper East Side will be privy to a special Apple Store experience, as the company will reinstate its dormant personal shopping service and observe shorter-than-normal hours in order to fit in with the tony neighborhood.
"The Upper East Side store is designed to serve an important role in the neighborhood and respect the surrounding community," Apple told the Wall Street Journal. "In this case, that means a smaller footprint, earlier closing time, and private shopping options for customers."
The company's previous personal shopping effort allowed customers to pre-book appointments for one-on-one service from Apple Store staff. Apple shuttered the program in 2010, after it became untenable as store popularity exploded.
Apple's statement was in response to concern over the store's contruction on the part of Upper East Side residents, who fear that the new outlet would bring a down-market feel to the otherwise posh area when consumers line up and camp out for new product launches. Area businesses and residents have banded together to oppose the store.
Madison Avenue "has been a fine retail corridor that doesn't generate the crowds that Apple does," according to Herbert Feinberg, the opposition leader, who owns a five-story townhouse in the neighborhood. "The Whitney [an art museum which relocated from Madison Avenue last year] didn't do that at all except for Friday events, but it was a dignified line. No shouting, no screaming, no tents, no sleeping bags, no barbecues."
Said another long-time Upper East Side resident, the Madison Avenue location is "so shockingly the wrong place."
Apple has brought in an architectural A-team for its new store, which will be located in the 93-year-old former United States Mortgage and Trust Company building at the corner of East 74th Street and Madison Avenue. Longtime partners Bohlin Cywinsky Jackson -- whose name has been on numerous flagship Apple Stores as the architect of record?--?are handling the design, while Eckersley O'Callaghan will provide critical expertise in structural glass engineering.
"The Upper East Side store is designed to serve an important role in the neighborhood and respect the surrounding community," Apple told the Wall Street Journal. "In this case, that means a smaller footprint, earlier closing time, and private shopping options for customers."
The company's previous personal shopping effort allowed customers to pre-book appointments for one-on-one service from Apple Store staff. Apple shuttered the program in 2010, after it became untenable as store popularity exploded.
Apple's statement was in response to concern over the store's contruction on the part of Upper East Side residents, who fear that the new outlet would bring a down-market feel to the otherwise posh area when consumers line up and camp out for new product launches. Area businesses and residents have banded together to oppose the store.
Madison Avenue "has been a fine retail corridor that doesn't generate the crowds that Apple does," according to Herbert Feinberg, the opposition leader, who owns a five-story townhouse in the neighborhood. "The Whitney [an art museum which relocated from Madison Avenue last year] didn't do that at all except for Friday events, but it was a dignified line. No shouting, no screaming, no tents, no sleeping bags, no barbecues."
Said another long-time Upper East Side resident, the Madison Avenue location is "so shockingly the wrong place."
Apple has brought in an architectural A-team for its new store, which will be located in the 93-year-old former United States Mortgage and Trust Company building at the corner of East 74th Street and Madison Avenue. Longtime partners Bohlin Cywinsky Jackson -- whose name has been on numerous flagship Apple Stores as the architect of record?--?are handling the design, while Eckersley O'Callaghan will provide critical expertise in structural glass engineering.
Comments
If they think that their area is pristine they need to review their crime rate, it would shatter their delusions of an oasis of civility.
according to Herbert Feinberg, the opposition leader, who owns a five-story townhouse in the neighborhood.
Screw this guy and his five-story townhouse.
If he wants peace and quiet, then he should move to the country side, and not live in Manhattan.
These people sound like real stuck up snobs. Apple not good enough for them heh?
I say that Apple should ship in some of those nice protesters from Baltimore and set them up outside this guys' townhouse and around this snobby neighborhood to give the residents there a thing or two to think about.
As for the A-Hole that is leading the effort opposing the store, here is an example of the type of people he hangs out with - "Mr. Ashley pleaded guilty to making a counterfeit copy of $900,000 in Pepsico stock owned by Herbert Feinberg of 138 Madison Avenue and then offering the forged stock certificate as collateral for an investment loan from Halsley Investments." (from the NYT)
Many places people would love to have an Apple Store move in. Not here, will bring in too many lower class peasants to our snooty area of town.
Maybe you can take up donations to pay Apple to stay out? Figure out what the Apple store there would make in 10 years or so and start collecting!
I've never seen "tony" used as an adjective before. Thanks for teaching me something today!
Yup. just ask Maxfield LA. I'm sure they're rethinking their partnership with Apple now they they are the only brick and mortar store in the Western Hemisphere to stock ?Watch inventory.
Riiiiiiight. I'm sure they just hate the national attention and making money. ????
Yup. just ask Maxfield LA. I'm sure they're rethinking their partnership with Apple now they they are the only brick and mortar store in the Western Hemisphere to stock ?Watch inventory.
Was that the store that crapped their pants when they saw people lining up outside their store on Apple Watch launch day? LOL OH NO! You aren't the customers we wanted! But ... we will still take your money. Just please take it to the Apple Store if you have any issues.
Yup. just ask Maxfield LA. I'm sure they're rethinking their partnership with Apple now they they are the only brick and mortar store in the Western Hemisphere to stock ?Watch inventory.
The Dover Street Market in London has it, too.
The Dover Street Market in London has it, too.
I wasn't aware the UK was now included in the Western Hemisphere.
I wasn't aware the UK was now included in the Western Hemisphere.
Are you serious? The Greenwich meridian literally runs through London.
Yeah! Like all those 1%'ers you gave promotional ?????? Watches to...
Are you serious? The Greenwich meridian literally runs through London.
Ah but then on which side of the meridian is the Dover Street Market?
Always the details.
ETA: Solidly WEST of the Greenwich Royal Observatory (thanks Apple Maps!), makes it by something under 8 miles (the mileage I got was for road transport so it's not a direct measure of it's distance from the meridian as it's apparently north and west of the observatory)
ETA2: OTOH I don't think anyone seriously judges Europe, including adjacent islands, as located in the Western Hemisphere: IIRC usually thought to be the continents of Southern and Northern America plus their adjacent islands (Caribbean etc.) i.e. NOT the "Old World": so as expanded on in Wiki: "
The Western Hemisphere[1][2] is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the Antimeridian, the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.[3] While the Americas has yet to reach 1 billion people, the Western Hemisphere has reached this figure.
In this sense, the Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas, the western portions of Europe and Africa, the extreme eastern tip of Russia, numerous territories in Oceania, and a portion of Antarctica, while excluding some of the Aleutian Islands to the southwest of the Alaskan mainland.
In an effort to define the Western Hemisphere as the parts of the world which are not part of the Old World, there also exist projections which use the 20th meridian westand the diametrically opposed 160th meridian east to define the hemisphere.[4][5] This projection excludes the European and African mainlands and a small portion of northeast Greenland, but includes more of eastern Russia and Oceania."
Sorry, but as a company that has always sold premium products to high-earners, that's simply wrong. A person willing to spend $17K on an Edition is going to get more attention and better treatment than someone looking for a bargain.
The Dover Street Market in London has it, too.
Other than I wasn't including anything but North and South America, that's true. There's also a store in Paris, Milan, Berlin, as well as in Cities in China and Japan ... and didn't I also hear Hong Kong?
So no, Maxfield is NOT siphoning all of the watches from the supply chain, these other stores are contributing as well. But they are the only one in the Western Hemisphere. ;-)
Many places people would love to have an Apple Store move in. Not here, will bring in too many lower class peasants to our snooty area of town.
Maybe you can take up donations to pay Apple to stay out? Figure out what the Apple store there would make in 10 years or so and start collecting!
Fixed it for you department:
"Not here, will bring in too many lower class peasants petit bourgeoisie to our snooty area of town."
Apple, please don't pander to these 1% pricks! They are no more special than any of the rest of us. They are simply self-important asshats. Keep the store just like every other store, including the hours and lines. Down market??? Absolutely ridiculous. Steve would never have tolerated this.
That ship kinda' sailed when Apple decided (or realized) that since the smart watch sector is not (for the present) the next huge wave on technological/utilitarian merit, they'd have to add as much sizzle (marketing) as steak (actual digital functionality value delivered) to make a (top and bottom line) success out of the product... ...and to offer a $17,000 variant on a $349 product that adds only the former to the latter....
....and started to hand out special versions of even the special product to the entertainment and fashion elite.
Right now they're two companies in that regard - the upscale (in terms of well-designed, highly functional somewhat upscale products that also have some cachet) computing wares vendor that Steve Jobs reinvented...
...and now the new high-fashion lifestyle merchandiser who will allow you to pay to have their products on your body for the reflected status you hope for... ...and which, oh, also happen to have some cool functions.
I hope they can be both, 'cos they'll lose me if they keep moving toward the latter.
PS: Not ragging on the watch's eventual growing utility as a digital platform - it obviously oozes future promise and is a very well-executed v1.0 all in all, just on this new fashionista, elitist and wanna-bes focused side of the corporation.
I always thought the Western Hemisphere contains Western Europe as well as the Americas.
I always thought the Western Hemisphere contains Western Europe as well as the Americas.
The concept of "The West" long predates the discovery of the Americas, and that's probably the source of many confusions, since it applies to Western Europe (though modernly not Africa, but Australia and maybe Japan???). The "Western Hemisphere" is a relatively new concept, and has this arbitrary and geographically odd distinction of being everything west of Greenwich, London. Meaning that the Apple Stores in Convent Garden and Regent Street (both in London) are Western Hemisphere, while the Stratford Apple Store (also in London) will technically be Eastern Hemisphere (by a fraction of a degree).
Good old Euro-centicism and British imperialism