New York Magazine
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This morning, we got a sneak peek at Apple's newest retail masterpiece, an open-air, balcony-hovering store spread over 23,000 square feet in Grand Central Terminal. The company's fifth New York City location opens officially on Friday at 10 a.m., and, one imagines, will be instantly jammed with iPad testers and e-mail checkers. But the store has pulled a few tricks to cut down on waiting time and crowds. Shoppers can use the Apple Store app to order ahead from their phones and pick up purchases straight from the cash-wrap; alternatively, they can swipe product bar codes with their iPhone to make purchases, dodging the line entirely. (You’ll also find credit-card machines at the end of iPad-and-MacBook-packed tables on the east balcony.) Here, you see the view from the terminal's east balcony overlooking the main concourse. Photo: Danny Kim
Two Genius Bars span the north balcony wing, along with Mac-laden tables for one-on-one training.
Photo: Danny Kim
The Grand Central store includes two personal setup rooms, where Apple specialists will activate devices and transfer old data.
Photo: Danny Kim
The north balcony area is perhaps the store's most impressive, lit by the terminal’s century-old Beaux-Arts chandeliers and affording overhead views of the main concourse. The two Genius Bars are stationed here, as are a short table with iPads and four plushy stools for kids.
Photo: Danny Kim
The east balcony entryway, just off the subway escalators, is designated by three glowing Apple logos.
Photo: Danny Kim
The store affords views of the terminal’s starry ceiling above and main concourse below. Apple hired 350 employees for this location.
Photo: Danny Kim
Accessories get their own section here, including speakers, cases, and headphones.
Photo: Danny Kim
A view of the main store area, spanning the east balcony. Mac computers are on the left wing and handheld products (iPads, iPods, iPhones, and the like) are on the right.
Photo: Danny Kim
The auction room has been taken over by Taylor’s couture and ready-to-wear fashion and accessories including gowns from Dior, Michael Vollbracht, Donna Karan, Chanel, Versace, Lacroix, Thierry Mugler, Pucci, Arnold Scaasi, Gucci, Thea Porter, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, and Yves Saint Laurent, to name but a few. There wasn’t a fashion moment in her lifetime that she missed.
Photo: Danny Kim
Christie’s has installed a miniature version of one of her accessory closets with all handbags color-coded, naturally.
Photo: Danny Kim
What would you give for one of her director’s chairs? Someone will outbid you.
Photo: Danny Kim
Michael Jackson gave his good friend lots of gifts, including a diamond watch so loaded with stones it would have been near impossible to tell the time. He also gave her this eighteenth-century ceramic bowl that just happened to have the name Elizabeth Taylor (common in those times) painted on it.
Photo: Danny Kim
Her Chanel moment is well represented.
Photo: Danny Kim
The black velvet Scorpio evening cape labeled “Tiziani Roma” with diamanté scorpions embroidered on the front and hood is my favorite. Karl Lagerfeld was working at Tiziani as a freelance designer in 1969, the time this was made, so there is speculation he might have dreamed this up.
Photo: Danny Kim
All 1,200 L-shaped pieces of this lamp are made of polyamide plastic printed on a Selective Laser Sintering machine. Dror uses a similar interlocking technique on one of the conceptual building designs on his bulletin board.
Photo: Danny Kim
As I left the office, I noticed Dror’s collection of toys with simple movable parts. “I am fascinated by toys that have movement and geometry,” Dror says. “These have an ingenuity and playfulness.”
Photo: Danny Kim
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Danny Kim
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Danny Kim
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
Photo: Danny Kim
For me, the high point of the show is this, which manages simultaneously to be a painting, a force field, and an electromagnetic visual discharge. This is an artist sloughing off old consciousness, making something he doesn’t even know is art, giving up nearly all known languages of painting, and maybe violating the laws of nature by making something that seemingly puts off more energy than went into making it.
