The current design is a collaboration between Foster + Partners and Apple's chief design officer Jony Ive, while the original structure was designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, led by Peter Bohlin. The site is adjacent to the southeast corner of Central Park, opposite Manhattan's Grand Army Plaza. The store is located on and beneath a public plaza built for the General Motors Building, built in 1968. From 2017 to 2019, the store was rebuilt with about double the retail space to a more modern design by Foster + Partners.Īpple Fifth Avenue is on Fifth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets, across from the Plaza Hotel. It was renovated in 2011 to simplify the façade. The substantive interior, below ground, features a reflective steel spiral staircase and elevator, wooden tables with Apple products, and rooms and areas for specific Apple products.Īpple Fifth Avenue was first constructed in 2006 and designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. The plaza is partly lined with benches and trees. Its exposed exterior is a transparent 32 ft (9.8 m) cube in the middle of the plaza. The store is on and beneath a public plaza by the General Motors Building, built in 1968. The store is considered one of several Apple flagship locations, and the pre-eminent store for Apple in New York City. It is in the luxury shopping district of Fifth Avenue between 49th and 60th Streets, and opposite Manhattan's Grand Army Plaza. So don’t count the cube out for good - though it may vámonos for a bit and then return.Exterior and interior as originally builtħ67 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York CityĤ0☄5′50″N 73★8′23″W / 40.76383°N 73.97298°W / 40.76383 -73.97298Īpple Fifth Avenue is an Apple Store, a retail location of Apple Inc., in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. We’d like to thank our customers and neighbors for their understanding as we complete the renovation. While construction is underway all 800 employees will serve our visitors from around the world at a fully-functional store next door at 767 Fifth Ave, also open 24 hours a day. We look forward to creating an incredible new Apple Fifth Avenue, where our customers will enjoy new services and experiences in a much larger space.

I reached out to Apple for comment on this and they just came back with the same statement they had when they announced the renovations:

At one point Apple used glass from Beijing-based North Glass Safety Glass Co. to reduce the number of panes for a cleaner look, so they may do some gleaming of the cube this time around too. Whether they will alter it or improve it I do not know at this point. Apple’s construction contractors may indeed have to remove the glass cube that sits over the entrance to the sunken 5th Ave location - but only because it’s a bit hard to do a massive store renovation when there’s a big glass cap on top of your easiest entrance/egress portal.Īs far as I know, the plan was always to put the cube back on top when they were done - and that remains the plan. It turns out that this seems to be a permit-does-not-tell-the-whole-story story. I was immediately massively skeptical that Apple would delete one of the most well-known retail structures in the entire world for no reason. The permits call for the “full removal of the glass cubical structure at the Apple Store entrance.” The reports came via building permits that were likely tipped to sites like Macrumors by Apple watchers.

If you saw the same reports I did a bit earlier today you were likely shocked to hear that Apple would be removing its iconic ‘glass cube’ entrance way over the top of its 5th Ave retail store in NYC.

767 5th ave apple store