Apple Store Fifth Avenue: The Aftermath

Well, the big day has come and gone, but not without leaving us with some impressive stats (feel free to help us out in the comments with better stats and info!):

Number of people who attended: Tens of thousands (our guess)
Number of people who won a new Macbook: 15 out of a possible 24
Number of people who didn't: Tens of thousands minus 15
Number of Auctions on eBay selling commemorative t-shirt: Four (as of 9:30AM this morning)
Longest time on waiting for store to open: 41 hrs 45 minutes (Stormy Shippy, arrived from Texas and took his place at 12:15 a.m. )
Famous people spotted: Steve Jobs, Spike Lee, Finesse Mitchell, James Woods, Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dretch, Tina Fey, Elizabeth Berkeley, Chris Parnell, Fred Arimsen, Martha Plimpton, Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, Horatio Sans (heck it might just be easier to say the entire cast of SNL), Triumph the insult dog.

CNET has an interview with the line folk. [via TUAW]

ifo Apple Store has a day by day account of the event since Tuesday - there was a wedding proposal, some details about lights on top of the GM building and, of course, someone yelled at Steve Jobs, "You hot!"

Wired news also chimes in with a crowd report. All for a brand of computers!

Insane crowd shot part of timelapse quicktime at Apple.com. Check out their retail page, for a new time lapse for every hour for the first 24 hours - there were still crowds of people trying to get in at 1AM, and between 2AM and 6AM people were still streaming in and out of the store!

And sadly, the rumors of a free concert proved untrue.

UPDATE: Velvet Sea measured the line at 0.4 miles!

Jamfan spotted Triumph in a compromising position: with a human's arm sticking up his butt!

Kottke spent last night analyzing the 24-hour time lapse film, and made a startling discovery at around 5am:

Apparently this was the second proposal of the evening. Insanity!

UPDATE: 4:59PM tried to live-blog the first 24 hours, but collapsed at around 10am! Will anyone live-blog the whole way through?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Neil Epstein in News on May 20, 2006 9:40 AM

Comments [rss]

tien

beauty of a shots

number four

to "Longest time on waiting for store to open: 41 hrs 45 minutes (Stormy Shippy, arrived from Texas and took his place at 12:15 a.m. )"

that's bull.

i arrived at 9am, established myself as #4, started sitting at around 4 or 5 PM on thursday, and left for a grand total of about 6 hours between then and 6pm friday.

Stormy and his buddies in the #2 and #3 spots took his pansy little bum back to his hotel while we (pretty much 4-10) were out of doors, on fifth avenue, for a 6-hour thunderstorm overnight.

C3PO

So, by this logic, I guess people who comment about how lame it is to, say, line up for Star Wars 3 weeks early are really "jus' jellus", as opposed to people who genuinely find it retarded.

Lasadh

At least being there and enjoying the crowd and experiencing the "event" and doing some celebrity-spotting was far cooler than commenting here about how lame the whole thing was.

Sour grapes, anyone?

avi

was the dell dude there?

Anomalous

jack d - Star Wars was fun, but never had the cache of coolness.

Me too

I think reading, and then commenting on, the store opening itself is a bit nerdy. At least those people got out of their houses and did something besides read about it. :)

grafittix

I love Apple and all but yeesh, it's a store opening for pete's sake! Little too much adoration for my taste.

Brightliner

Kid in the mid-80s, eh? Color me unimpressed, whippersnapper. Try owning an Apple II in '78, complete with RF modulator and cassette interface. (And only pretentious poseurs type "Apple ][" or "Apple //") Get back to me when you've built and programmed an IMSAI 8080 or a MITS Altair, then we'll talk about how impressive your credentials are.

I use a PC now.

All this Apple talk makes want to break out my Apple ][ emulator so I can play Legacy of the Ancients. Also, Tass Times in Tonetown for the IIgs is one of the most fun adventure games ever. Yep, I was using Apple products as a kid in the mid 80s. How cool does that make me?! Cooler than the freaks waiting to get into a store at 3 in the morning, I'm sure of that. I bet most of you Apple newbies have never even heard of MacPaint or the classic Mac game Daleks. What a bunch of bandwagon-jumpers.

Brightliner

Frankly, I don't believe you, kj. Why? Because I don't believe there's more than one infantile cretin who uses such a redundant phrase. Nobody I can possibly think of would be caught dead saying or writing that. I suppose if Jake were to pull up the IP addresses for all the "mancock" posts, they wouldn't match, eh? Suuuure...

shaka zulu

when Kanye West and Spike Lee go to the apple store you know you've got a real classy place. They bring serious street cred YO!

Reg

Kanye West was also there. They had a bunch of employee's stand outside and clap/cheer people going in or coming out. While im trying to take pictures of the insanity, a jeep rolls up right in front and starts talking to NYPD. Suddenly, Kanye himself pops out and walks in. Funny tho, that they really didn't cheer for him any different then any of the other regular people, lol.

Wozniwack

Wait, is mancock juice sperm? Is the term alluding to the fact that Mac users are fags?

lssts

what is the point of selling those shirts on ebay? Is it so someone can fake pretend that they spent 35 hours waiting on line to get a oversized t-shirt? Mac user are crazy.

jack dong

Can you imagine when Triumph will show the nerds segment on Conan. Remember the legendary star wars nerds line and how triumph single handedly destroyed that franchise for coolness? Apple is gonna try to pay whatever amount to Rob Smiegel to cut that shit out.

kj

actually, the other "mancock juice" comments were not from me. It just spread like Lance Armstrong's Yellow Bracelets. Hahahah. Brightliner you should lay off the mancock juice. I know you won't believe me but it's true the other comments are from complete strangers. Complete strangers who are united in the belief that Mac users suck mancock juice.

Brightliner

This is probably "The user formerly posting as KJ" at work again. He/she/it used the same "mancock juice" attack last night. This also confirms the Mensa qualifications of "KJ." It has to be "mancock juice," of course. As differentiated from all the womancocks out there.

allegedlygriffin

Allegedly, they suck mancock juice.

Still nerds, though.

Hey, your Ipod is made in China now, remember when they were made in Ireland. I bet their defect rate went up, in fact, I know so. From reading all these forums of how lucky one was to get the applecare.

Um, it's not unlucky, the product workmanship went downhill when they moved production.

This is for the Ipod only. Note, how many people are selling broken Ipods, me? I would put a .45 through it.

Anomalous

I love people who, when seeing people do something that does not interest them, feel the need to insult those people. What a healthy attitude! I don't care for ballet but when I walk by Lincoln Center I don't think "Nerds! They must suck mancock juice."