Apple subway station?

Chicago Red Line

Jon Boyd, Nov 03, 10.

The North/Clybourne subway station in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago has a new $4 million renovation, according to Kaid Benfield. Apple Computer incorporated the transit station makeover with its new Lincoln Park store, which overlooks the station,says Benfield:

It cost around four million dollars to reburbish the station. If you’re thinking that there’s no way the cash-strapped Chicago Transit Authority could afford that, you are right: it was funded with private money, by the Apple corporation, in conjunction with the company’s construction of a new retail store on adjacent property.

Mike Cassidy wrote in The San Jose Mercury News:

“This is not a company that leaves much to chance and there was no way the sales gurus in Cupertino were going to let a dungeon-like transit stop present the first impression of their sleek and glassy store.

“Remember, Apple sells an experience as much as it sells products.

“’The public might not think of it this way, but the retail experience doesn’t start exactly in your store. It starts when they approach your store,’ says Kirthi Kalyanam, a professor with the Retail Management Institute at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.”

Apple also built the plaza in between the North/Clybourn transit station and its new store, which opened in late October.

The company would like to call the new station “the Apple Red Line Stop,” according to a column written by Mary Schmich in The Chicago Tribune. And, while the CTA hasn’t agreed, they apparently haven’t ruled it out, either. Schmich suggests that they may as well, since everyone is going to call it that anyway.

A friend of Schmich’s is especially fond of the plaza:
“A plaza, with seats. Like these guys weren’t so terrified of homeless people sitting down that they weren’t going to let anyone else sit down, either. And a fountain, that instant supplier of peace. It made me want to sit down on a nice day with a cup of tea and a book. OK, in gratitude to Apple, it should be an iPad, but whatever. I say thank you to Apple.”

Chicago Transit Authority