Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Carnegie can't pay for this? Apple needs to spend money on updating this building? Why not invest in a American owned factory, supply chain in detroit?!
 
Carnegie can't pay for this? Apple needs to spend money on updating this building? Why not invest in a American owned factory, supply chain in detroit?!

Because they are investing in a retail space. Building factories is beyond the scope of the project.
 
Carnegie can't pay for this? Apple needs to spend money on updating this building? Why not invest in a American owned factory, supply chain in detroit?!

Really, you think that's how this works? Carnegie donated that building to the city 100+ years ago as a library - like they did in cities and towns across the America.

They don't own the buldings. They never have. They donated the construction money and plans. There is a more modest, brick, Carnegie library at 5th & Cedar streets, NW, near the Takoma Park metro station.

It has been up to the city to keep them repaired, and it is a cost that they would love to see other groups, like Apple, take over, fo the benefit of all in the area and traveling through.
 
  • Like
Reactions: filmantopia
The idea of a building like that becoming an Apple Store makes me sick. This society is crumbling.
 
That's idiotic. If you know anything about this beautiful building and its perfect location, you would know that this is a perfect use of the space. It hasn't been an a working library for decades - early 1960's, possibly.

It is a decaying grand dame of the area. What Apple is proposing would bring back its beauty and character, and turn it less in to a dispenser of products, but a dispenser of personal tools for knowledge.

This was once a stunning library. Now it will house information receptors. I love it!

I am a Librarian of almost 30 years of experience. This is as good as it gets.
Couldn't agree more.

If only you guys in the States really understood how lucky you are to have such a philanthropic company in your midst that is able to take on the repair and reuse of notable buildings. If only we had a similar company in the UK with commensurate clout!

I could go on for ages as to how lucky you lot are to have a team of people who care about more than just "things" and are prepared to do more than build another retail chicken-coop. This building, when completed, will have the ability to drag everything around it up - not keep everything around it the same as you would if you spent money on even more chicken-coop stores.
 
The idea of a building like that becoming an Apple Store makes me sick. This society is crumbling.

Why? It hadn't been used for years, and was decaying because the city couldn't keep it up.

This is a win/win/win for the city/Apple/and society as a whole.

A beautiful building will be restored to its former granduer and used and appreciated by the people of the city and those traveling through.
 
Why? It hadn't been used for years, and was decaying because the city couldn't keep it up.

This is a win/win/win for the city/Apple/and society as a whole.

A beautiful building will be restored to its former granduer and used and appreciated by the people of the city and those traveling through.

In the early days of historic preservation, if a building no longer housed its original use, and it couldn't be turned into a museum of some sort, it was often demolished. Preservationists got wise during the '70s and started promoting the concept of adaptive reuse, which is respectfully converting buildings designed for one use into another. It is now an important tool in historic preservation and city planning. This is my line of work and I find myself explaining this concept quite a lot, even to people who want to call themselves preservationists, but who are really seeking to avoid all change, even to the detriment of the buildings they claim they are trying to save.
 
  • Like
Reactions: brianlbaker
There seem to be a lot of folks weighing in on this that know aboslutely nothing about:

1. The history of Carnegie libraries in America,
2. The history of DC and the neglect many city owned buildings suffered through in the 1990's when the city almost went bankrupt,
3. The history of the area surrounding this gorgeous unused building (it was an untouched jewel that sat relatively untouched as almost everything, except churches, were burned around it during the riots following the Dr. Martin Luther King assasination),
4. that this building has sat unsued and neglected for decades, &
5. This building sits directly across the street from the new DC Convention Center, next to Chinatown, a few blocks from the sports arena, and has its own Metro Stop, Mount Vernon Square.

As I said elsewhere this is a win/win/win opportunity for the DC/Apple/and citizens.

Learn about the city the building and the area befor you bitch about society crumbling. Apple will stop that building from crumbling when no one else would. This is a GOOD thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chupa Chupa
And also because it is historic. Am I the only one who read the source article?

Nope on both accounts. Of course Apple is going to recognize the history of the building but it's DC. There are plenty of empty or available-for-lease historic buildings here, but the Carnegie has a unique location. If this was the "former location" of the Carnegie, not just the former Carnegie, Apple would still be locating there for the reasons stated in my first post. History of the building has nothing to do with it but that gives Apple an extra story to tell, a bonus of sorts.
 
Nope on both accounts. Of course Apple is going to recognize the history of the building but it's DC. There are plenty of empty or available-for-lease historic buildings here, but the Carnegie has a unique location. If this was the "former location" of the Carnegie, not just the former Carnegie, Apple would still be locating there for the reasons stated in my first post. History of the building has nothing to do with it but that gives Apple an extra story to tell, a bonus of sorts.

Read the story.
 
Read the story.

I read the story...again. Still don't see the quote from an Apple official stating they are moving into the site primarily because of the building's history. Again. The builiding has history and it's a great building. But the fact it's the former Carnegie library is not why Apple is moving there. The building could have been the former Horse Dung Transfer Station in 1890 and Apple would still be moving there because of the real estate, not the real estate's former use. And again, lots of building's in DC have a historic claim. If Apple was looking to move into history it could have found something with even more jaw dropping story in that regard.
 
I read the story...again. Still don't see the quote from an Apple official stating they are moving into the site primarily because of the building's history. Again. The builiding has history and it's a great building. But the fact it's the former Carnegie library is not why Apple is moving there. The building could have been the former Horse Dung Transfer Station in 1890 and Apple would still be moving there because of the real estate, not the real estate's former use.

You changed "also" to "primarily" to make what ends up being a non-point. You also seemed to miss that Apple is happy to share the building with the Historical Society of Washington DC. You also seemed to miss Ahrendts' remarks about a goal of creating sense of place for Apple stores. This is interesting because it's the first time I have gotten a feel for her direction for Apple Retail. So that's almost like being it being in the Horse Dung Transfer Station, except for it being not at all like that.
 
Fine architecture once you manage to enter it, but it's location as a destination for non-locals is quite retail-challenged. I've been a local since the mid 70's, in fact a bike messenger throughout the 80's, and know this location well, and it's been ignored for decades due to its odd traffic pattern. It is a place you drive by, but never seem to figure out how to actually arrive at.

Check a street map......what nobody will tell you is that, great building aside.......there is absolutely NO substantive parking at all, and NO easy way to get in and out. You cannot really even slow down, because you have multiple converging one way avenues, about 2,943 signs to read as you navigate across 4 lanes, and once you miss your turn, it will take you about 30 minutes to get back to where you started. Then you *might* remember what you did wrong last time. It's a fun afternoon for the whole family.

Locals don't really walk here, and they don't really drive here either. The drive BY here. It may seem like its convenient, but this is an island of a location. Factor in a parking surcharge per visit. Guess its Metro or no-go.
Carnegie.jpg
 
Last edited:
YOU (and I) are Apple customers, and it should be all about "the you" if Apple wants to continue to grow.

Completely disagree. I want them to focus on the environment, on labour issues etc. As a shareholder and a user I'm glad that they care about more than just making as much profit as possible.

“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI,” Cook said. And I applaud that stance.

Steve Jobs was extremely focussed on delivering innovative game changing products to the customer. When companies lose focus on the customer (especially hugely egotistical companies), then they lose customers.

Steve Jobs wanted an even bigger cube for the 5th Av Store:

http://www.cultofmac.com/298075/steve-jobs-wanted-iconic-fifth-avenue-apple-store-even-bigger/

Jobs was smart - he knew the iconic stores act as advertising. The current iconic stores follow his vision.

People wouldn't be complaining about a fancy spaceship headquarters, historic buildings for stores, and a CEO bent on making political statements rather than spending their vast pile of cash on innovative product development; if the company was delivering on their core mission. But that isn't happening. Product lines are being neglected and Apple is moving from innovator to follower...

In the decades that I've bought and followed Apple these complaints have always happened (and I'll bet they always will).

Apple have still innovated plenty in the last 4 or 5 years. You just either choose to ignore it or it may be things you have no interest in.

- TouchID
- Apple Pay
- Stepped batteries in the MacBook
- The A series of SoCs
- ResearchKit
- Swift
- AFPS
- AirPods (in particular the magic of the W1 chip)

etc. etc.

I was just in the store yesterday playing with the Galaxy S8 and the mock ups for the next iPhone look an awful lot like Apple is now just lagging Samsung.

1. I wouldn't worry about mock-ups. My biggest reason for using Apple stuff over the years is because they work well in actual use. My biggest gripe about the S8 is the location of the fingerprint reader. I'd be really dissapointed if Apple follows that.
2. The performance of the Galaxy line still leaves a lot to be desired. Espeically multitasking (by which I mean switching between apps on mobile) - the S8 has to reload way too frequently in my use.

I've spent a lot of money with Apple over the years and more and more I'm finding that they just aren't hungry for my money anymore. About all I have left that I'm using which is Apple is an older Mac Mini (with a Dell display since my Thunderbolt Display died and no replacement offered; and planning to transition to my Surface Pro 4 most everything from it), a single Apple TV (just bought a Roku yesterday, and planning another one to replace the Apple TV since they have a couple of apps like Amazon that I want on there), and an iPhone 6s+.

I'm the opposite. I find myself with very little in my home computing that isn't Apple: I have a 2012 MBP, an iPhone 6, Series 0 Apple Watch, iPad Pro 9.7", Apple TV 4. My only non-Apple gear (that I actively use) is an Amazon Fire Stick (which will be replaced by an ODROID C2) a Rapberrry Pi and an HP MicroServer for my NAS needs.

And to think I used be pretty much all in on Microsoft/Windows about 15 years ago. Not many stay on top forever - but right now I'm a very happy Apple customer.
 
You changed "also" to "primarily" to make what ends up being a non-point. You also seemed to miss that Apple is happy to share the building with the Historical Society of Washington DC. You also seemed to miss Ahrendts' remarks about a goal of creating sense of place for Apple stores. This is interesting because it's the first time I have gotten a feel for her direction for Apple Retail. So that's almost like being it being in the Horse Dung Transfer Station, except for it being not at all like that.

OK, my apologies for the semantics. Wrong word perhaps. Let me rephrase. The fact the building is historic was not a reason Apple leased it, it was a bonus. No matter what designation the building held it was prime for Apple's needs if available, and it was.

Apple is happy to share the building because that is the offices of the Hist. Soc. of DC is located. That is their home. They were not moving, Apple needed the Society's imprimatur to do the deal, and most likely Apple had no use for the upstairs. It's a pretty spaceous building for retail even limited to only downstairs. Apple is also happy to share it's nearby M Street location (also which required approval from HPRB) with Vineyard Vines and Pentagon City Mall with Nordstrom's and Sunglass Hut.

Ahrendts' remarks go to Apple Stores generally, most of which are not located in historic buildings or districts. It was not her intention to lease the property because it was historic. She takes her "victims" as they come. It was her intention to lease a property that would get noticed. Big landmark building amongst a slew of anonymous mid-rise buildings, next to the convention center and good Metro access, in a part of town way underserved by any type of consumer electronics store.
 
You must not be a local. Being a DC local and reading this made me say YES!

The area this is in is somewhat dead, mostly just the convention center and some hotels.

This will bring a ton of traffic to the Mt. Vernon area.

The Carnegie Library is a small but beautiful part of DC, and I'm glad Apple is investing to make this library better, along with keeping a low profile.

Traffic, business, improvements to the Carnegie Library, and a footprint that won't detract from the site.

Apple wins, DC wins. I love it.

(also as Chupa said, it's a great isolated location that's very visible)

This... I was in the area a year ago, my charger broke. No worries I thought I'll go to a Apple Store.... nope, Best Buy...nope.

This is defiantly what that area needs. It's full of business people and there are going to be many times given apple's current laptop line up when they need that dongle.
 
At the risk of sounding like a jerk, why does Apple need to spend all their time worrying about historic buildings or other social issues when people are pissed off about the lack of focus on their products?
1. Outside MacRumors people are not pissed off. Sales of the MacBook Pro and iPhone 7 are the best ever.
2. People working on opening stores are not the same as people working on products.
3. What Apple is doing there will get them a lot of goodwill from people in Washington.
[doublepost=1494337998][/doublepost]
I really wish ad hominem attacks were allowed here.
Careful what you wish for. Your post started with "At the risk of sounding like a jerk..."
 
1. Outside MacRumors people are not pissed off. Sales of the MacBook Pro and iPhone 7 are the best ever.
2. People working on opening stores are not the same as people working on products.
3. What Apple is doing there will get them a lot of goodwill from people in Washington.
[doublepost=1494337998][/doublepost]
Careful what you wish for. Your post started with "At the risk of sounding like a jerk..."

You are of course quite correct that many people are quite happy with Apple, including shareholders. Part of my problem is that I "joined up" when it was Apple Computer. And though I have an iPhone and various other Apple products, in my heart I'm a computer guy.

Someone further up started listing Apple's recent innovations and oddly enough they were mostly iPhone things. So, yes I'm probably a minority, but people like me were willing to pay a significant premium to get machines that were serious monsters and looked cool too. And the empire that is Apple was in part built off the purchases of loyal Mac buyers during those years when Apple was sometimes on life support financially.

And from a financial stand point maybe it makes sense now to not worry about the few who are willing to spend $3K to $10K for a computer since we are so few. I just feel like I went to the dance and now my date is dancing with someone else. Maybe irrational, but frustrated none the less.

And while I admit I was in a quite a pissy mood when I wrote that, most people that disagree with me here are able to do it in a way that isn't condescending and reeks of a 15 year-old sitting in his mother's basement. But not that guy.
 
Last edited:
Some people really need to realize that there are hundreds of different products that apple works on. People who do the retail stores dont work on the imac or the mac pro, so no point in moaning about that.
Also just dumping money and workforce on a project doesnt always help. Im pretty sure the reason for the slow-updating is not money or too few capable engineers.
 
OK, my apologies for the semantics. Wrong word perhaps. Let me rephrase. The fact the building is historic was not a reason Apple leased it, it was a bonus. No matter what designation the building held it was prime for Apple's needs if available, and it was.

Apple is happy to share the building because that is the offices of the Hist. Soc. of DC is located. That is their home. They were not moving, Apple needed the Society's imprimatur to do the deal, and most likely Apple had no use for the upstairs. It's a pretty spaceous building for retail even limited to only downstairs. Apple is also happy to share it's nearby M Street location (also which required approval from HPRB) with Vineyard Vines and Pentagon City Mall with Nordstrom's and Sunglass Hut.

Ahrendts' remarks go to Apple Stores generally, most of which are not located in historic buildings or districts. It was not her intention to lease the property because it was historic. She takes her "victims" as they come. It was her intention to lease a property that would get noticed. Big landmark building amongst a slew of anonymous mid-rise buildings, next to the convention center and good Metro access, in a part of town way underserved by any type of consumer electronics store.

I think you are missing precisely what MR missed. Ahrendts appears to be altering Apple's retail image, not all at once, but incrementally. This should hardly be surprising, given that this is her job. Based on what she said in the interview, she has identified the problem with Apple's current retail image, which is based entirely on the Jobs aesthetic. These are not are not warm places. They do no encourage you to hang around. This is what Ahrendts wants to change.

So I see Apple going for more retails spaces with character, the kind of places where people like to be for longer than their retail transaction. Historic buildings offer that. So leasing this space isn't merely a coincidence, it very much seems to be part of a new approach. Personally, I welcome it.
 
That's idiotic. If you know anything about this beautiful building and its perfect location, you would know that this is a perfect use of the space. It hasn't been an a working library for decades - early 1960's, possibly.

It is a decaying grand dame of the area. What Apple is proposing would bring back its beauty and character, and turn it less in to a dispenser of products, but a dispenser of personal tools for knowledge.

This was once a stunning library. Now it will house information receptors. I love it!

I am a Librarian of almost 30 years of experience. This is as good as it gets.
Once a library, now a commercial cesspit is more the reality.

The county would best be served by turning this building back into a place of learning and NOT into another one dimensional retailer such as an Apple Store.
[doublepost=1494424271][/doublepost]
If you don't use your Apple products for accessing (and reading) the knowledge available over the internet, don't blame Apple. Given the choice between traveling to a public library (during those hours that it's open) and buying a device that allows me 24/7 access to far more knowledge than any one library could contain... I'm not going to choose the public library, despite the fact that I live across the street from a perfectly adequate public library and I'm within 45 minutes of one of the world's greatest and best-known libraries. If I have to pay a commercial entity to obtain the tool that unlocks those riches, so be it.
No, Apple wants the building for retail sales, that's not knowledge or learning. You can sit at home and order a MacBook to unlock those riches. This public space does not need to be converted into retail space, it needs to be restored as a public learning space.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.