Apple Inc.

That big Apple ad on nytimes.com is back today! Which is odd. Last Friday that ad appeared as well, which means that's two weeks in a row that Apple has taken over the Times home page.

Back in January, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis told us that Arthur Sulzberger Jr. had instituted "new rules" regarding ads like that and decided those would be limited to once a month.  read more »

Today, a big swath of the nytimes.com home page has been taken over by an Apple ad. Directly below the New York Times banner, there's a banner ad with a quote from The Wall Street Journal comparing Apple's Leopard software (favorably) to Windows' Vista . To the right, in a double-wide skyscraper ad placement, there's Justin Long and the PC guy; he climbs a ladder on the right and magically passes through to the top ad, adding the word "NOT" to the end of the Journal quote (get it?)  read more »

R.W. Apple's 12/5 memorial service at the Kennedy Center, lately rebroadcast on C-Span, was a good look at the social ways of powerful journalists. Apple seems to have socialized—surprise—on the Democratic lib/left. A eulogist, the powerful corporate lobbyist Anne Wexler, who is married to former NEH boss Joseph Duffey, reminisced about meals that Apple would throw together in the '70s for her husband, who was running on the left in Connecticut, and Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. Meanwhile, Wexler was working for McGovern. There's nothing wrong with this; journalists are people too, with predilections. What's bothersome is the pretense that they are culturally-neutral seers. They tend to be on the center-left and vote Democratic and support abortion rights. You heard it here first.

May I point out a small error that David Mamet—and practically everyone else in the country&md  read more »

What makes a leaker leak? Who cares?    read more »

We've spent months pining for a Flatiron Apple store. First we thought the iPod-people would be opening up on 136 Fifth Avenue, but our hopes were dashed when a middle aged-ladies' clothing store went there instead.  read more »

As long-awaited recomense, there is some thrillingly anti-PC news this morning: Apple is opening it's third Manhattan locale, at West 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. It's not Flatiron, but it'll do just fine.

The Real Deal says the space will be 50 by 75 by 100 feet, and we're looking into other wonderful numbers. - Max Abelson

Me and Bob: On the one hand, you could say that the conflict I’m about to describe proves that eve  read more »

Me and Bob: On the one hand, you could say that the conflict I’m about to describe proves that  read more »

Why do the good real estate ideas always have to die young? Apple's prospects for a Flatiron district retail store have been officially extinguished. Last year this time, The Real Estate reported that the company had worked heartily with the city's Landmarks Preservation Committee in order to perfect its plans for renovating the 1850 rowhouse at 136 Fifth Ave.

But the building, remembered by hip coffee shop connoisseurs as Andrews, is now fated to house the first NYC store of the unbearably less chic White House Black Market. (Which White House? Where's the Black Market?).

The middle aged-ladies' clothing retailer is sub-leasing from Apple, though the companies involved--including brokerage Robert K. Futterman--cited Apple's penchant for privacy as a reason for silence.

Continuing The Real Estate's healthy relationship with Apple PR, a company spokeswoman repeatedly declared: "We've never announced any plans for stores in that area, nor have we announced any future plans."

Pity, too, because we truly had been hoping for another big shiny cube.  read more »

- Max Abelson

ERICA: "OH MY GAAAAAWWWWDDDD!"

Yes, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but "Oh My God," was all I could get out as I sat there staring at my computer screen blankly. My email program crashed. It had a heart-attack, followed by a stroke and then capped it off with an aneurism resulting in five years of saved emails, all in carefully notated folders, disappearing forever. Gone. Done.  read more »

Please, please, please, spare me your lectures on "backing things up." I get it. I was dumb not to have saved everything somewhere, but excuse the hell out of me. I think it's a little dumber that Microsoft freakin' Outlook, without warning, becomes corrupted and dies when the storage limit goes above 2 gigs. No little pleasing tone comes up with a message reading: "please free up some space in your folders or your storage limit will be met" --just full on deadness. I called Apple, I called every computer expert friend I have (and shout outs to anyone else out there who this has happened to, because I know there are a lot of you!), but I'm just undeniably screwed.

• NYU researchers find that the affordable housing available for New York's moderate-income households has taken a nose-dive. The Times refuses to decide "whether the rising housing costs are seen as a sign of the city's economic vitality or a harbinger of trouble." We only wish to return to that happy $1,000 era. (The New York Times)
• No, seriously, everything's fine: the city's May economic performance was "stellar," beating up on the unemployment rate until it sunk to an 18-year low. 6,100 new jobs were born, and the number of employed city residents grew by 29,000--which means 7% of the country's job growth happened right here in the Apple. (If only the workers had a place to live.) (Crain's)
• The old Municipal Art Society calls for big changes to the Atlantic Yards plan. Convincingly, they point out that Forest City Ratner's 8.7 million square feet of proposed development is the size of three Empire State Buildings (or 2200 brownstones). We attended the very long, very hot basement press conference, and would like to ask the MAS that they please vocalize their obvious answer to their own question (i.e. Can the development "work for Brooklyn?") a little earlier next time. (The New York Times)
• Despite his upstate alibi, the homeless man arrested last week in connection to Brooklyn's 10-alarm fire is indicted. (AP, via New York Daily News)
• REBNY gives an award to the cubic Apple store under the GM building, calling it the city's most creative retail deal. Thankfully the East 14th Trader Joe's gets a prize for benefiting Manhattan (and its unquenchable appetite for expensively flavored seltzers), while the new Cobble Hill/Park Slope Whole Foods is dubbed the most creative real estate deal in the outer boroughs. (New York Post)
• The Daily News gives some serious coverage to a tree house--a Williamsberg tree house going for $150 per month. Brooklyn has died and gone to Hell. (New York Daily News)
- Max Abelson
• 2 comments

Plans to replace the old Andrews Coffee Shop (left) on Fifth Avenue at 18th Street with a new structure to house the Apple Store (right) appear to be on hold.

Well, they were already questionable: back in July we reported on the local community board's problems with the design, and spokesperson Monika Wik had this to say:

In researching the store location you point our below [sic], 136 Fifth Ave.. [sic] I see no such plans for a store, as such I consider the location a speculation at this time and therefore cannot comment on speculation and rumor. Thank you, Monica

Now, a sign in the window of the store offers it for lease through Robert K. Futterman. Here's the listing.

Rent is not disclosed--that's only available upon request. But it's a 12-year term, immediate occupancy, and in a "Comments" section, the listing reads: "Sublease from Apple."

Also, that rendering was obtained by The Real Estate through the community board, which voted against the proposed rebuild last summer.  read more »

Anyone know what gives?

- Tom McGeveran

It’s bad enough when workmen enter your apartment, don’t fix your problem and leave behi  read more »

It’s bad enough when workmen enter your apartment, don’t fix your problem and leave behind a mes  read more »

The Ruins of California is a great title, even if it’s hard to know where a name like “R  read more »

iPod, Therefore I Am: Thinking Inside the White Box, by Dylan Jones. Bloomsbury, 288 pages, $14.95.  read more »

iPod, Therefore I Am: Thinking Inside the White Box, by Dylan Jones.  read more »

(Left: The Andrews Coffee shop, as it is now. Right: Apple's rendering of its plan to replace the building with its newest New York store.)

With the vaguely retro-chic Andrews Coffee Shop at Fifth Avenue between 18th and 19th Streets now shuttered, Apple Computers' plan to build a store on the site is running into some trouble.

Last March the board recommended that the Landmarks Preservation Commission not allow the computer company's proposed renovation of the two-story building at 136 Fifth Avenue.

The building, built in 1850 as a four-story rowhouse, had its upper two floors destroyed in a fire in 1960; Andrews opened there in 1982. Apple wanted to remove the existing façade and replace it with gray limestone, and also to extend the rooftop.

The main point of contention was the massive illuminated Apple logo that would serve as the sole identifier of the store. Because it would sit in the Ladies' Mile Historic District, the board was none too happy with the modern, bright design.

So, instead of trying to convince the L.P.C. of the merits of its design over the board's objections, Apple literally went back to the drawing board and came up with a more subdued design.

Now, instead of a renovation, Apple wants to demolish the existing building and construct a new one. But the board found the company's plan once again too too.

Board member Harold Mendes called it "brutally modern, and nothing to do with the context of the neighborhood." Former Board 5 chair Kyle Merker said that Apple's last design was "very troubling," and said of the new proposal: "This is a very modern design, and we're trying to preserve a historic district .... It's a great-looking building, but it's in the wrong place."

Not everyone seems to think the old coffee shop was so in tune with the design of the neighborhood. Bergman said: "It's a refreshing sight for the block. The coffee shop was an eyesore for so long."

Apple's plan is due to go before the L.P.C. on July 26. No word on whether the company will try to convince the commission to sign off on its project without the community board's backing. Calls for comment from Apple are as of this writing unreturned. A spokesperson in California promised to get back to us, and when they do, we'll get back to you.

UPDATE: Apple spokesperson Monica Wik finally got back to The Real Estate. Here we reprint her strange message in its entirety: Matthew In researching the store location you point our below [sic], 136 Fifth Ave.. [sic] I see no such plans for a store, as such I consider the location a speculation at this time and therefore cannot comment on speculation and rumor. Thank you, Monica

Note: As of this posting, the Landmarks commission still has a hearing scheduled to consider the application for an Apple store at 136 Fifth Avenue on July 26. And that rendering, posted above? It's theirs.  read more »

- Matthew Grace

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