Where the stores are

A brief look back before we look ahead.

May 08, 2023

The imminent reopening of Apple Tysons Corner has put me in a nostalgic mood. After a bit of Internet Archive digging, I located the announcement page, press release, and mall directory page that Tysons Corner Center published for Apple in 2001. To say the mall was pretty excited about the new store is an understatement — they put an Apple logo right in the site navigation.

shoptysons.com homepage — shoptysons.com

Using archived versions of the mall map, I was finally able to determine that Apple took over an old Liz Claiborne space for its first store. The irony that Angela Ahrendts was an executive vice president at Liz Claiborne many years before joining Apple is not lost on me.

Tysons Corner Center mall maps — The Tysons Corner Center map before and after Apple opened.

In a moment of serendipity, I also stumbled upon this new upload of a very old Apple Store opening: Apple Easton Town Center on September 7, 2001:

Apple Easton Town Center grand opening thumbnail

According to the description, this video was originally produced by the defunct website maccomedy.com. It’s cheesy, yes, but also incredibly fascinating. There are few Apple Store opening clips this old, and even fewer shot in a vlog-style format I associate with much newer videos.

The first thing that struck me was the carefree optimism of the day. Remember: this was four days before 9/11. It’s hard to imagine a similar scene one week later. It’s also striking just how contemporary the Apple Store still looks today, especially in relation to the mall, the clothing styles, and the absolutely ancient cars in the parking lot.

Easton opened about four months after the first Apple Stores, so most of the fixtures and merchandising inside are identical to Tysons Corner, right down to the graphic panels on the walls. Subtle differences include the window displays, the design of the kids table, and the acrylic name tags on top of the software alley shelves.

Street View informs me that the site of the original store is now home to Victoria’s Secret PINK.

Candlelight concert

On April 30, Apple held a special concert at Apple Tower Theatre to celebrate the launch of Apple Music Classical. In partnership with Candlelight Concerts, Orchid Quartet performed a variety of classical and contemporary works.

Although the event was hosted privately after store hours, Candlelight Concerts shared a fantastic recap of the setup and performance on Instagram stories. I saved a screen recording of the entire highlight reel and uploaded it privately on YouTube here for you to check out.

Watch

Tower Theatre and The Grove in L.A. have hosted a number of special events since opening in 2021, and it’s great to see how both locations play to each other’s strengths. Tower Theatre’s intimate space and balcony are perfect for private performances like the Candlelight Concert, and The Grove’s massive Forum is flexible enough to host the cast of just about any Apple TV+ show. It’s already hard to imagine one store without the other.