Apple Store Opens on 5th Avenue

The glass cubed Apple store on 5th Avenue across from the Plaza Hotel opened today at 6pm. Since they were offering free t-shirts (which I'm a total sucker for) and chances to win Macbooks hourly, I went to see what the big deal was. The crowd was massive! The cube has power, like some giant geek vortex.
Rumors of a U2 appearance may have helped to draw the crowd too, but apparently not everyone had heard that Bono was in Africa this week. Hey doofus with the we heart U2 sign, I could see from ground level there was no band set up, why couldn't you from 10 floors up?
The line at 6pm looped around the front of the Apple store plaza three times before completely encircling the block and heading back and up Madison. According to the Gmap pedometer map I drew below, the line to get into the Apple cube was .45 miles!
There was no way I was going to wait that long, so I just walked around it the best I could. It's really cool.The store is actually below the plaza, there's a glass staircase and elevator in the middle.
Just after 6pm, Steve Jobs was spotted by the door and the cube was surrounded by people in black t-shirts who applauded as people entered the store. Love the floating logo.
.category: nyc_