Dec 19, 2024 12:30:00

The site where Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh is now a pile of rubble

The Flint Center, where the first

Macintosh was released in 1984 and which served as a venue for Apple events until it closed in 2019, has been demolished and turned into a pile of rubble.

Original Mac Flint Center launch venue is finally being torn down
https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/12/18/steve-jobs-original-macintosh-demo-site-is-now-rubble

The Flint Center is where Steve Jobs introduced the first Macintosh in 1984, and has long been a popular venue for Apple events. It was used as the venue for Apple's important launch events until 2014, and the product launch event for the first Apple Watch, which was released in September 2014, was also held at the Flint Center.

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However, Apple needed a larger venue, so in 2017 it established a new event venue for presentations called the 'Steve Jobs Theater' in a section of its new headquarters, Apple Park .

Apple first started using the Flint Center as a venue for its press conferences when the company held its first shareholder meeting as a public company in 1981. The reason Apple held its first shareholder meeting at the Flint Center was because Apple's headquarters at the time was located at 20863 Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, California, just half a mile (about 800 meters) away.

Although Apple has since moved its headquarters, when it launched the first Macintosh in 1984 it was based at 10260 Bundleigh Drive in Cupertino, California, just under a mile from the Flint Center.

The Flint Center had a capacity of 2,400 people, but only hosted events with more than 2,000 people about seven times a year, and most events had empty seats. As a result,

a survey conducted in 2015 revealed that the Flint Center's reservation rate was only about 17 to 24 percent.

The building itself was showing signs of aging, and restoration was estimated to cost as much as $50 million. In addition, as it was an old event venue, there were complaints from users about acoustics and other issues, so the Flint Center was eventually closed in 2019.

Since then, the Flint Center has been left abandoned, and as of the time of writing, it is undergoing demolition and is a pile of rubble. A new building called the Creative Arts Building is planned to be built on the site of the Flint Center.