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The Facade
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On Saturday, I attended the opening of the seventh [Apple Store](http://www.apple.com/retail/) in the Greater Boston area. The first six were [Northshore](http://www.apple.com/retail/northshore/) (our “home” store), [CambridgeSide](http://www.apple.com/retail/cambridgeside/), [Chestnut Hill](http://www.apple.com/retail/chestnuthill/), [Rockingham Park](http://www.apple.com/retail/rockinghampark/), [South Shore](http://www.apple.com/retail/southshore/), and [Burlington](http://www.apple.com/retail/burlington/). Saturday’s grand opening was the [Derby Street](http://www.apple.com/retail/derbystreet/) Apple Store, at the Derby Street Shoppes in Hingham, MA.
The Derby Street Shoppes is a ‘lifestyle center’, a new and growing breed of shopping establishment. This is an arrangement with various stores of the type you’d find in a mall, only the store fronts are outside. I call it an overgrown strip mall. In any case, the Apple Store is located in between The Children’s Place and Burton’s Grill. It’s an average size Apple Store, with all of the features one would expect – lots of Apple and third party hardware and software, plenty of things to play with, and technical help at the Genius Bar.
I arrived at about 8:30 a.m., and at that point nobody was in line. A bunch of people were waiting around in their cars – a wise move, considering how cold it was. At about 9 a.m., the management came out and set up the velvet ropes. After that, people started getting in line. I ended up being about #20 in line after taking some photos. Once I was in line, I shot some more photos from my spot, and shot some video as well.
Since I’ve already been to many other Apple Stores, I wasn’t entralled as much by the store and its contents, but rather by the grand opening event, and all of the hoopla and crowds surrounding it. To that effect, you can check out my [photo gallery](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/geekiness/apple_store_derby_street/) of the event, as well as a [movie](http://prwdot.org/movies/apple-store-derby-street/) that I shot with our new camcorder and edited in iMovie.
Enjoy!
Update
Here’s some other coverage from around the Interweb.
– [Cape Cod Cyclist made a day of it](http://www.capecodcyclist.8k.com/weblog/archives/2006/02/apple_store_der.html)
– [V1Beta showed up to get a t-shirt](http://www.v1beta.com/social-experiment/the-kentucky-derby/136/)
– [Jishman goes to see yet another Apple Store](http://www.riddlemethisjishman.com/?p=258)
– [TUAW has their call out for reports](http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/18/apple-store-derby-street-your-reports/)
– [IFOAppleStore noted V1Beta’s photos of the grey-stone facade](http://www.ifoapplestore.com/2006/02/18/derby-street-shoppes-photos/)
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Thanks for the mention in your post! The free t-shirts were nice, although we did buy a few things while we were there! 😉
Hope to see you at future store openings, maybe they can do an indoor one next time!
This “lifestyle center” thing may be new here, but I used to live near such a place. Okay, so that was back in the ’70s and early ’80s, but back then, it definitely had the feel of an outdoor shopping mall. So pardon my “been there, seen that” attitude. 😛
(A more recent example would be The Streets at Southport in Durham, NC. But that’s down south, where people don’t mind being outside when they go shopping. g)
Matt: Compared to Digg and IFOAppleStore, you’re not going to get much traffic from me, but I am always happy to toss out a few links for this sort of thing.
Mike: We had one back in Ohio called Easton Town Center, so it’s not a new thing for me, either. I don’t see the concept taking off here in MA due to the cold weather and the lack of available space to build such things. That being said, there is a shopping center with a similar layout in Millbury, MA just off the Mass Pike… I don’t remember what it’s called, but it has a bunch of those typical mall stores. The Wrentham Village Premium Outlets also have a similar layout, though they are factory outlet stores and not mall stores.
I came across your post from a google search. I’m trying to get a Derby Street t shirt. I’m an Apple fan who used to live on a Derby Street (in a different city) so it would be neat for me to have one of these shirts. I’ll pay (of course). So if you or anyone else reading your site has one you’d part with, please email me, my name at mac.com.