I.M. Paid (Apple store opening)

Apple's new store on Fifth Avenue opened Friday evening with much ado about architect Peter Bohlin's 32-foot glass cube entrance, perhaps an ambitious homage to the Louvre's I.M. Pei pyramid (except this is America: we're not celebrating art or culture, but capitalism).

(Photo lifted from Apple e-mail promo)

The queue snaked from the store’s entrance, in front of the FAO Schwartz building on 58^th & Fifth Avenue, to 60^th & Madison shortly after 7 PM. As visitors emerged like red carpet celebrities from the gleaming glass cube, a coterie of Jobsian black-clad employees with Apple badges clapped with gusto, commemorating the birth of the 24-hour/365-day-a-year behemoth. We abandoned the cause and went out for French food instead.

I returned solo the next day. Here I am, caught by apple.com’s time-lapsed camera from the opening (12:00 – 1:00 PM). Click any photo to enlarge (indeed, you should):

I am reading the New Yorker and listening to the Stone Roses.

Descent into the Fourth Circle.

The genius bar

The thronging masses yearning to breathe free

View through the glass cube

FAO Schwartz building

Steve's Ian^* and the Great Glass Elevator (see me in the reflection)

Roof of the glass elevator

The lucky guy, armed with a paltry rag and bottle of Windex, who gets to clean all of this glass.

Foot traffic

Announcing the 1 PM MacBook winner

Bastards.

* Update from NF: the guy in the glasses and boots is named Ian, NF’s friend I met for about 5 seconds at a party last year. My memory’s good, but it does have limits.