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If Manhattan has the Cube, Brooklyn is getting the Triangle.

Downtown Brooklyn’s transformation continues with an Apple store set to open on Dec. 2. Apple’s 10th store in New York City is a giant glass-sided triangle right down the street from the Atlantic Terminal and Barclays Center.

The store takes up a chunk of the 300 Ashland Place plaza, which will also have a Whole Foods coming in early 2018. Its unique shape is thanks to how the block is structured. The entrance is right at the corner of a triangle-shaped block, flanked by two busy intersections often flooded with traffic.

Like Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, the Brooklyn location’s “walls” are actually 30-foot-high slabs of glass, letting people look in on tables full of iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches. The store, with a staff of 160, has the expected wooden tables, neatly placed gadgets and videos looped all of the screens surrounding you.

A big difference, Jason Barlia, Apple’s market director, said this is the only Apple store in New York City with a “Genius Grove,” six ficus trees in the center of the store surrounding a table where customers can pop in and ask technical questions. The trees aren’t locally sourced, said an Apple representative at the store.

Here are some photos from inside if you want to get a look at what you can expect:

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Apple’s second Brooklyn store is a giant triangle

Growing up in Brooklyn, this triangle block is much more familiar to me as an old parking lot for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But more recently, the neighborhood has attracted businesses, including Apple, to take over spaces for millions of dollars. 

I’ve been followed Brooklyn’s changes, having once reported on them as a young intern for the Brooklyn Paper. The neighborhood’s expansion was slow during my time there as a high school student, but blossomed over the past 10 years, transforming into a jungle of expensive high-rises and stores. 

Downtown Brooklyn now appears as appealing to the company as Williamsburg, a hipster haven where Apple opened its first Brooklyn store in 2016. In math, a triangle (the delta sign Δ) is supposed to represent change.

With Apple’s new store, the unintended symbolism really feels on the nose.  

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