Manhattan Village (S. Calif.) Grand Opening

Thanks to Herschel for a complete report and photos of the July 30, 2005 grand opening of the Apple store in the Manhattan Village shopping center in the Los Angeles area.

Saturday, 4:30 a.m.

Well, here I am again. I say "again" but in reality, I've never been here before in my life. I've ventured down to a part of the city I've only explored once in my life (and that was for a rather unfortunate Bar Mitzvah party where I'm sure I was only invited as a provider of presents). My current 'digs' are (is) the lobby of the Hotel Belamar (I'm sure they would appreciate the plug) where the overnight desk attendant graciously allowed me to hang out for 30 or so minutes until I start to queue up for... another Apple store opening! I'm a bit more subdued for this opening, but that's partially due to the fact that I've gone through this before and partially due to I've-never-been-here-before. I pulled in about an hour after I pulled out (great timing, even when I had to pull off to the side when my [convertible] top started to come loose) at 3:45 a.m. Getting my bearings on the place took little more than driving around the (rather) small center. The mall is relatively tiny, yet it's brought together in what appears to be a neighborhood center. Fry's, CPK, Ralph's, Sav-on, and two Macy's anchor the 'village.' As of 4:25 a.m., no one is in line (but then again, the mall's management has said no line until 5 a.m.) yet, but we'll see what difference 35 minutes makes. It's a chilly morning, but the spirits of the people I've met (the hotel, the supermarket) are warm and friendly. This seaside enclave of Los Angeles, Manhattan Village is a great, welcoming place for Apple's newest store, and I can only hope my line-mates will be in as good a mood as I am. I'm off to go see if I can get in line a few minutes early--it's already 4:43!

Saturday, 7:30 a.m.

First in line, Mike (20 minutes prior), followed by Patrick and Adam at 4:45.

The past two hours have been quite uneventful, with a queue 11 persons long from just before 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. and shooting up to 16 around 7:30. The majority of us early birds, our movies and games of solitaire finished and our chapters of Harry Potter properly ingested, made the trek one-by-one to the Coffee Bean and Bagel place about 5 minutes from our lookout location. Lucky for us, there was a 'loo' in the same out parcel.

About 7:20, that mini cherry picker that they use to clean up the windows and the bead blasted aluminum showed up and carefully maneuvered its way to the employee entrance that Patrick pointed out is usually close.

The normal "tough attitude" guard was out from the beginning (along with several rules about the waiting line) but softened as he chatted with us and Mike, a mall shopkeeper. He was, incidentally first in line, after a tip that they might be doing something that sounds oddly familiar to us as Lucky Bags.

Some handy rules I had never heard of:

• No chairs in the indoor queue.
• Once it's daylight, no more extension cords or chaise lounges.
• I'm sure that goes for when we're inside as well (and the usual no photography rule)

The thing is, it's daylight, and we're still plugged in and keeping our charge. It's generally a pleasant atmosphere, and there's a light breeze. Overnight temperatures were slightly chilly for Californians but I'm sure there's someone (or 5) in Idaho who's laughing his ass of us.

Off to take pictures...

Saturday, 9:10 a.m. and post-opening

Thought I should take advantage of the wireless before I put my stuff away in my car. Last time I made the mistake of having too much unneeded stuff in my hand while walking the "Apple chorus line." Around 8:30 a.m. there were 40 people in line, but half an hour later it reached 100. Not long after that, 160, and around 9:50 a.m. the official ticker count was 263 people, but it was steadily climbing.

The line wound up reaching around the far side of the Macy's and stayed that way for at least an hour, possibly until shortly before 11 a.m.

As of 11:05 a.m. the store had finally cleared the Macy's doors, but there were still quite a bit of people as the line stretched into the mall.

As of 11:30 a.m., T-shirts are still being given out.

Update: at 12:09, the queue was completely gone and the barricades were taken down.