After what seems to us like an eternity of construction, the Boylston Street Apple Store will open today across the street from our Yankee Group offices in the Prudential Center. You can see some photos I took at 8 am today here. Beyond the multi-story glass spiral staircase, I found the grass-covered roof visible from our offices particularly intriguing, especially because I had just heard a radio piece on green roofs this morning on NPR (the link for this morning’s program isn’t up yet, so this is an older NPR piece. While we’re all speculating on how well that design element will hold up in the typical New England February, it certainly makes the store distinctive from our vantage point.

I haven’t attended an Apple Store opening since the 2001 opening of the Northshore store here in Massachusetts, when a few thousand fans started lining up about 12 hours before the opening. And true to form, people are already lined up outside the Boylston Street store for the opening at 6 pm today. Word has it that the store expects to host between 1,500 and 2,000 shoppers per hour. All we can say is that if the Apple Store isn’t your destination today, it’s a good area to stay away from today; the crowds and traffic are going to be noticeable.

Oh, and one more thing: given the shortages that have arisen all over the world that many speculate presage the arrival Apple 3G iPhone, I wonder if the Boston store will have any iPhones for sale?