Corner of Prince & Greene Streets

At least one of us has a love/hate relationship with technology, at least one of us is a gadget man, and at least two of us will be nicknamed “Cream of Wheat” during brief prison stints. Regardless of all that, there is a Mac Store not only uptown on 5th Ave, but also downtown in possibly-not-as-chic anymore SoHo. (For you out-of-towners that stands for “SOuthern HOspitality does not exist in New York”).

During our search for the second floor bathroom, we witnessed a large in-store theater being used for an official Mac store presentation: a perky young girl was teaching a group of middle-aged people the joys of using bookmarks on their Internet browsers. At least they wasn’t trying to reel the folks into investing in condos on swampland in Florida.

As for the bathroom, its silvery minimalism is reminiscent of the uptown location. The faucet has a very ergonomic design, but apparently it’s already obsolete technology as of this writing. Steve Jobs reportedly has a faucet in his house that only requires you to think about water and it starts flowing (guests still have to pay $499 to use it, however). People in orange shirts scatter in and out to clean the bathrooms on an alarmingly regular basis, the female staff in particular is not shy about walking into the bathroom of the opposite sex. One of the urinals was out of order, covered in a plastic tent like a body not yet hauled off to the morgue. A plunger and toilet brush in the stall implied that they want you to use the toilet only for urinating. The bottom line is that this bathroom is generally clean and pleasant, but Jobs has left several hints to get his message across: “Urinate quickly, then get back to buying my products.”

Rating: 6.0

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