Say Farewell to New York's Original Apple Store

[brooklynite]

Atlas Obscura

On a busy street just off 6th Avenue in the Flatiron district of Manhattan sits a humble storefront. Rows of Apple Macintosh computers in a variety of colors and shapes line up on shelves behind glass, each one slightly less cuboid than the one to its right. At some point, the beige transitions into candy colored monitor cases.

This is the “Mac Museum” at Tekserve, the computer sales and repair shop that served techies in New York City for 30 years, and it's about to go dark.

...snip...

Tekserve’s lease on the building expires at the end of August and the rent will triple, prompting Demenus to shut it down for good. Tekserve will be buzzing on August 23rd, however, when almost every item here goes up for auction—by Thursday afternoon, the highest bid for the “Mac Museum” stood at $23,000.

The auction will be a swansong for a main street store that was considered the original Apple store. When Tekserve opened in 1987, its staff catered to the few Mac enthusiasts in New York City. It grew into the nation's largest Apple reseller. Demenus started the business in his loft apartment and then moved around several locations, before they found a permanent home in 119 West 23rd Street, some 15 years ago. Demenus lives next door and will continue living there as the new tenants move in.

I've known one of the co-founders for over 25 years. Tekserve was a New York institution, and famous enough to make it into an episode of SEX & THE CITY:

[Initech]

1. Where are all the people who are waiting for the next iPhone going to wait now?

[brooklynite]

2. Actually, they only sold iPhones for a year...resale margins were too low.

But they'd always set aside an iPad or iMac for me on the first day of sale...

[RapSoDee]

3. No wait. Drones will deliver.

[bettyellen]

4. Such a great staff there. Really fair and not into upselling you crap.

[onehandle]

5. Walked by it a few months ago. Wish I had gone in for one last visit.

Figured this was coming.

[PJMcK]

6. A great store with terrific people

In fact, the dismissive tech in the "Sex & The City" clip was not at all like the real people at TekServe. They were always friendly, helpful and informative. A customer would get as much time as necessary and satisfaction was a given.

Whenever possible, I gave TekServe my business. The prices were fair and the staff knew what they were talking about. There were many times that their repair team saved my butt for me and my clients.

I'll miss them.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Apple Stores are just dreadful places in general.

Big, loud, confusing. Just a bunch of tables and no direction as to where to go to help. Reminds me of a trendy looking high school cafeteria.

I've only been in one once to service my phone. Once was enough.

[The_Commonist]

8. Yep. I worked there for many years...

It was a great place to work, and I made a number of life-long friends there.
The museum pieces are all for sale now.
Although I'm free today, I can't bring myself to go the auction, which is happening at this very moment.
But it's OK, because I've got a small Mac museum of my own.
And working there let me afford to collect a museum's worth of other, non-computer items.
Mostly musical instruments.

It's sad to see it go, but that's the nature of Capitalism.
They couldn't compete with internet pricing and free shipping, the Mothership stealing their ideas (Genius Bar), and NYC rents.

[winstars]

9. I brought my SIL's MBPro there from CA while on a biz trip to NY, they fixed it for $117...

She had gotten quotes in Socal from $400-$900 to fix it.... for what turned out to be a bad cable from computer to display. The cable was $15 and the rest was to diagnose and the labor. Essentially free in my book!!!!


This sucks that they are going out of biz, they were something almost unheard of these days, HONEST!!!