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New York’s biggest Apple

Over the next few months a striking piece of symbolism will take place around the mightyGeneral Motors building on Fifth Avenue in New York. Apple, the tech group, plans to move outof the basement where it has operated a flagship store-cum-tourist attraction for the pastdecade, underneath a now-iconic glass cube.

在接下来数月内，极具象征意味的事情将发生在纽约第五大道(Fifth Avenue)上那座宏伟的通用汽车(GeneralMotors)大楼周围。科技巨擘苹果(Apple)计划将过去10年来游客经常造访的那家旗舰店，从如今已成为地标的玻璃方屋下方的地下室中搬出。

The tech group will not be disappearing altogether from this prime site, tucked on thesoutheast corner of Central Park. Instead, it is renovating the basement to cope with soaringnumbers of visitors, and, later this year, it plans to move “temporarily” into a space on theground floor of the General Motors building next door.

这家科技集团并不会从这个紧邻中央公园(Central Park)西南角的黄金地点彻底消失。相反，苹果正在对这座地下室进行翻修，以应对日益增加的游客。今年晚些时候，苹果计划“暂时”搬进旁边通用汽车大楼的一层。

In a neat twist of timing, FAO Schwarz, the equally iconic American toy store, has decided tovacate its flagship location in the GM building on July 15 “to realise meaningful rent savings” inthe face of “the continuing rising costs of operating a retail location on Fifth Avenue”. The storehas not yet revealed where its new home will be.

刚巧就在这个时候，同样标志性的美国玩具店FAO Schwarz决定于7月15日将其位于通用汽车大楼内的旗舰店搬走。面对“在第五大道开设零售店成本持续上涨”，此举是为了“实现重大租金节约”。该玩具店尚未公布新店地址。

So when tourists flock to Central Park this summer, they will no longer see stuffed animals,dolls, Lego and train sets — or the gigantic “floor piano” keyboard that Tom Hanks and RobertLoggia danced on in the 1988 movie Big (a film that helped to immortalise FAO Schwarz).Instead, the site will host piles of gleaming electronic gadgets — and the inevitable throng ofvisitors who pay pilgrimage around the clock. (Apparently, the store under the cube is notjust the busiest in the world but also the only Apple store that operates 24 hours a day, sevendays a week.)

因此，今年夏天当游客蜂拥至中央公园时，他们将不会再看见毛绒动物玩具、玩偶、乐高积木(Lego)以及火车模型，也不会再看见地板上的巨型“钢琴”琴键——在1988年的电影《飞向未来》(Big)中，汤姆•汉克斯(TomHanks)和罗伯特•洛贾(Robert Loggia)就是在这个地面琴键上跳舞(这部电影让FAO Schwarz在人们心中留下了难以磨灭的印象)。取而代之的是，那里将会摆满成堆闪闪发光的电子小玩意——游客也必然会成群结对，不分昼夜地前来“朝圣”。(显然，玻璃方屋下面的苹果旗舰店不仅是世界上生意最忙碌的，还是唯一的每周7天无休、24小时全天候营业的苹果店。)

Now, in one sense this rental dance is nothing new. As the journalist Vicky Ward recounts inher book, The Liar’s Ball (which tells the history of the GM building and which is about to bemade into a Hollywood film), this site has already seen endless commercial flux. Businessempires have risen and fallen there at startling speed. Indeed, one of the great (and little-known) ironies about that famous glass cube is that the man who first dreamt up the idea,Harry Macklowe, the real estate titan who owned the GM building, actually went bankrupt(before later rebounding).

眼下，从某种意义而言，这种租户更迭没什么新鲜的。正如记者薇姬•沃德(Vicky Ward)在她的书《骗子的皮球》(The Liar’s Ball)中叙述的那样，这个地点已经见证了数不尽的商业变迁。(该书讲述了通用汽车大楼的历史，即将被拍摄成为好莱坞电影。)在这座大楼中，商业帝国以惊人的速度崛起和没落。事实上，关于那座著名玻璃方屋极具讽刺意味(且鲜为人知)的一点是，最初设计出这个想法的人——房地产大亨、通用汽车大楼曾经的所有者——哈里•麦克洛(Harry Macklowe)实际上破产了(后来东山再起)。

To my mind, this switch of retail outlets speaks to far more than just the vagaries of NY realestate. After all, FAO Schwarz is not just any old toy store: in recent decades it epitomised a20th-century style of kiddie consumer dream, which, of course, is why families have long flockedthere to stare at the goodies — and that famous piano.

在我看来，零售店的转变所体现的远不止是纽约房地产市场的变幻莫测。毕竟，FAO Schwarz并不是普通的老牌玩具店：最近数十年，它象征的是20世纪儿童消费者的梦想，当然，这也是长久以来很多家庭蜂拥至此，凝视那些玩具和那台著名钢琴的原因。

In recent decades, like so many 20th-century American icons, the glittering façade hasconcealed a sense of rot. For while tourists have visited the store in droves, they have notbeen spending money on the scale that FAO Schwarz’s owner — Toys R Us — needs. Thesedays families tend to buy toys at budget downmarket shops (think Walmart) or upscaleboutique outfits (such as American Girl). The middle has been squeezed — making it hard tojustify Fifth Avenue rents.

最近几十年，就像那么多20世纪美国的标志性物品一样，那座光芒闪耀的店铺流露出一种衰败的味道。这是因为，尽管游客成群结队地走进这家商店，但他们在这里花的钱却一直无法达到FAO Schwarz的所有者——玩具反斗城(Toys R Us)——需要的水平。如今，家长往往要不就在经济型低端商店(比如沃尔玛(Walmart))，要不就在高端精品店(比如美国女孩(American Girl))里购买玩具。中端商店受到挤压——使得其很难支付得起第五大道的租金。

But at Apple’s glass cube consumers are not just thronging to look but to spend money too.Never mind the fact that the shopping experience itself is often horrid. (When I descendedthere myself recently, to get a new iPhone, the basement was so jam-packed and salesassistants so scarce that it felt like the retail equivalent of the seventh circle of hell.)

但是在苹果的玻璃方屋下，消费者不仅是成群结队地来，同时也会大笔花钱——尽管购物体验本身通常很糟糕。(最近我自己前往那家店购买一部新的iPhone手机，发现店内如此拥挤，店员也如此短缺，感觉就像到了商店版第七层地狱。)

Indeed, sales are so high that Mort Zuckerman, the current owner of the GM building, isquoted in The Liar’s Ball as saying that “whenever I want to cheer myself up I just take a walkaround the Apple Store”.

事实上，这家店的销售额极高，以至于通用汽车大楼目前的所有者莫特•祖克曼(Mort Zuckerman)(援引于《骗子的皮球》一书)曾表示，“每当我想让自己开心起来时，我就会在苹果店周围逛逛。”

At the beginning of this decade the store was making “$665m a year for 10,000 square feet”of space “in a windowless basement”. Undoubtedly it is dramatically more today; in fact, somewell-placed insiders suspect that if anyone could get comparable public data on sales persquare foot from retailers around the world (which is all but impossible), Apple’s glass cubewould be the most profitable retail outlet in the world.

在2010年代初，这家“位于地下、连个窗户都没有的”苹果店“1万平方英尺面积每年能创造6.65亿美元的销售额”。毫无疑问，如今这个数字肯定高得多;事实上，一些知情人士认为，如果有人能得到全球各地零售店每平方英尺销售额的可比公开数据，可能会发现苹果的玻璃方屋是全世界最赚钱的零售店。

Perhaps this is just another passing fad, like the FAO Schwarz floor piano. As the history of theGM building proves, business fortunes swing faster than anyone can imagine. In anothercouple of decades we may find it utterly bizarre to think that anyone ever wanted to go into awindowless basement with hundreds of others to buy an iPhone. Least of all treat it as atourist attraction.

也许这只是另一次短暂的热潮，就像FAO Schwarz的地面钢琴一样。正如通用汽车大楼的历史所证明的那样，企业命运跌宕起伏，速度之快超出所有人的想象。再过几十年，我们也许会感到难以置信：居然有人想要去一间连窗户都没有的地下室，和数百名其他顾客挤在一起，只为购买一部iPhone。更别提还把它当作一个游览胜地。

Right now, I will be watching curiously to see what Angela Ahrendts, the ultra-stylish designqueen at Apple, does with that cube. Like it or not, it has now become a powerful symbol ofour modern age, a time where kids (and adults) still love to buy “toys” — just not quite thetype of toys our parents flocked to in the past.

现如今，我将会饶有兴趣地期待苹果超级时尚的设计女王安杰拉•阿伦茨(Angela Ahrendts)对那个玻璃方屋的改造。无论你喜欢与否，这个玻璃方屋已经成了我们当今时代的有力符号。在这个时代，孩子(和大人)仍然喜爱买“玩具”——只不过跟过去我们的父母爱买的玩具类型不太一样罢了。