What the hell happened here?

This is a bit weird, to say the least.  As I was swimming through the intertubes today, as I often do, I came across this blog entry, titled “Where Apple’s Go To Die”.  The blog belongs to a Lebanese photographer who lives (or lived) in Kuwait and though the page is dormant now (the last blog entry was made in November 2005), it’s still available for perusal.  Mostly routine photography stuff, centered on his life in Kuwait.  One entry in particular though caught my attention.  It’s an apparently-abandoned Apple Store.  And I’m not talking one of the new, shiny places that sell you iPads and a copy of the latest version of Aperture.  No, this place has been there for quite some time.  It featured the rainbow Apple logo and the old Garamond font from the days before King Jobs returned to reclaim his throne and expunge the company of its past.

Stranger still is that whomever owned the place looks to have simply closed up shop one day and never returned.  “Think Different” posters still hang in the windows; shelves of shrink-wrapped software lie undisturbed under layers of dust.  There are even a few old Macs still sitting there.  It’s like one of those bad horror movies where the protagonist awakes one day to find his city completely, suddenly devoid of human life.

One of the commenters points out a promotional poster for a G4 Quicksilver visible in one shot, which means that the store was open at least into 2001.

The blog entry itself is dated January 2005, and I find myself wondering about that store.  Is is still there, untouched like some weird monument to Apple at the turn of the millennium?  Who owned and/or operated the store, and most importantly – what the hell happened there?

Be sure to visit the the photographer’s other page of images, where you can see more photos.

Edit:  Looks like this story made the rounds back in 2005 in all the usual places (Gizmodo, TUAW, Cult of Mac, etc).  Not sure how I missed it, but there you go.  More info on the place can be found here.

Second edit:  The store has re-opened.  This is also old news.