What do the sports team generate? I truly have no idea.

Haha OK Al Bundy. Congrats on your high school sports career. My first introduction to this area was Villanova and Temple years ago b/c I was actually playing against them.

And you shouldn't volunteer your friends to pick fights w/ people you don't know when they just might have a second job as a bouncer in Old City. I don't think he'd appreciate it. I'm not big in picking fights anyway though. See, I have this whole acting-my-age thing going on that I'd like to try and stick to.

I like how you're ready to stick your friends on me b/c I think Apple stores are useless though. You got that going for ya.

Despite my primary profession not being blue collar, come to think of it, I guess I am kind of representing "Yesterday's Philadelphia" here. But it seems to be a Philadelphia people are embarassed of. That snotty attitude kind of annoys me, b/c blue collar types are the ones who built this town, and every town. Without their craftmanship and hard work, all the architecture we love and the historical district we market to the world wouldn't even exist. All those destoyers down at the Navy Yard wouldn't be getting built. It's like we're greatful for their work as long as we don't have to be near them after they're off the job having a beer.

This is why they always leave happy hours at nice places when the suits, snobs, and yuppies roll in. I see it a lot. A place like ESPN Zone is a great sports bar for guys like that and other sports fans to catch the Phillies game after work, unlike the countless martini/margueritta/beer snob places we already have. Not only that, but they draw out of towners and Philly transplants looking for a place to watch their hometown team.

I'm not saying there isn't room for an Apple store and a place like ESPN Zone or Chickie's & Pete's. I'm saying most of Philadelphia would rather have the latter, so I don't get why so many people here are upset over not having an Apple flagship store. In fact, I can say w/ confidence most of Philadelphia has many things on their list ahead of a Apple flagship store that sells the same stuff they can get at Circuit City and K-Mart.

Considering the already-existing wide availability of Apple products w/out a flagship store, the number of Apple stores w/in short train rides of Center City, and the countless improvements needed for Center City to continue to thrive (a sports bar not even being a major one), the loss of perspective that so many have had toward Jersey being rewarded w/ an Apple store over Center City is pretty perplexing. Look back through the thread. People have been completely losing their minds.

My problem isn't w/ the negative reaction to another Philly suburb getting a store before Philly itself has one. It's the magnitude of the negative reaction that gets to me. People are going crazy. I'll never understand the obsession. It just doesn't seem rational.

I'm interested in that too. Anyone know of any good reports? Here are some random new articles with questionable accuracy...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_n17095047
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...01510465&EDATE=

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/1117stadiums.html

http://www.philadelphiausa.travel/pr...5&type=1&cat=0

http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/issues/sports.asp

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed073002.cfm


The information is all over the map. It is difficult to discern because there is a growing body of literature (much of it peer-reviewed) that says that the costs of building and financing stadiums comes so highly to municipalities that the gains can be negligible at best. There is also no current, contained study that I can find, similar to that of the arts impact study. Take it for what it's worth.

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I'd say that the most voluble Phillybloggers are creative-class folk who have at least one foot in "Tomorrow's Philadelphia," but the shot-and-a-beer Philadelphians have enough representation on these boards that they can't be ignored or dismissed.



That "too quiet" part gets to the heart of the issue. Digby Baltzell isn't the only observer of Philadelphia society to note the reticence of the city's upper classes; noted urban historian Sam Bass Warner, the man who gave the language the term "streetcar suburb" via the title of his book on Boston's late-19th-century metropolitan growth, found the same pattern when he wrote his companion volume on Philadelphia in the same general era, The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth. The end result is that, much as with Chicago, BTW, it's the working class that has defined the city's public face and self-image, because they were the ones making the most noise.



Indeed. I will offer my boss as an example.

She is definitely part of the "creative class" (or, to use another recent coinage, the "symbolic analysts" who manipulate data and information), and like me, she had an extensive background in higher education prior to coming to Activant -- which in hindsight is one reason I think we clicked; I continue to share with her the latest news that comes over on Inside Higher Ed, to which I still subscribe. She likes to engage in acts of creative anarchy, like Saran-Wrapping our call center manager and the cubicle of a call center marketer last week. Inside her cubicle are, among other things:

--a copy of a book called Extreme Office Crafts, a guide to fun things to make out of common office supplies
--a Donovan McNabb doll in full Eagles uniform.

Our graphic designer is a big New York sports fan; when I hung up a "Subway Series" poster in my cubicle, he asked me, "Are you a Mets or Yankees fan?" "Neither," I replied. "I'm a fan of the subway." (Besides, I could never root for the team that dispatched my beloved Royals in the playoffs for three straight seasons in my college years.)

No, it doesn't, and if you've followed my comments on the "Center City retail discussion" thread and related subjects, you may note that I am equally baffled over the oft-expressed Nordstrom fetish some here have, or the related desire to completely reimagine this burg as some exclusively upper-middle-class Nirvana. Even though every time I enter one, I feel as if I've been teleported back to 1970, I think that Center City could use a Boscov's before a Nordstrom.

You might also want to go look at a recent post I made in the "Why do gay bars suck in this town?" thread, backing up a poster from zip code 19145 in response to what appears to be a recent arrival here who (a) is a bad fit for this city to begin with and (b) has his nose so far up in the air he can't smell the roses around him.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

I'm a big fan of Springboard, but I'm surprised no one has pointed out that the only place you can go to get a malfunctioning iPhone looked at is an Apple store. You can't take it to an AT&T store, and you can't take it to Springboard. Once the iPhone opens up its platform to new applications, it would be especially nice to have a place downtown to go to get advice on making it work better. Right now you have to drive to the suburbs.

Has anyone actually contacted APPLE directly?


There must be a reason.


I'm still going with average salary/education census data.

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It's all but confirmed that Apple has been looking downtown for three years, if not longer. See: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...8/daily48.html

Center City's demographics are much better than many other places that have Apple stores. I think it's much more likely that it's just very hard to find a suitable site on Walnut/Chestnut.

A lot of major retailers aren't downtown, but I've always understood that many look for years in vain for the right space at the right price. The size and scale of available properties is often an impediment. It's hard to build to suit on Walnut in particular. Remember the hubbub over HMV on Walnut -- now the Gap? Opening up in a mall is always easier.

Worth noting, I guess, that the building in question is now occupied by a second H&M, a Steve Madden shoe store and an Ann Taylor Loft that I understand will close.

Edited to add: That HMV/Gap, it may also be worth noting, was new construction from the ground up -- something that also doesn't happen often at that scale in Center City.


Noel is right to point out that the space requirements for an Apple flagship store are such that the company would have a hard time finding a suitable location in most of the desirable retail districts in Center City. It's something of a shame, then, that Ruby Tuesday's took most of the first-floor space at the SW corner of the Liberty Place mall; along with the recently vacated Christopher's space on the second floor, the restaurant's space might have been enough for Apple to consider, and it probably wouldn't require a lot of architectural modification of Liberty Place's exterior to give it the Apple look.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden