The stone building, with two stories and a basement floor, first opened in 1922 as a US Mortgage and Trust Co. bank building. The second floor is occupied by jewelry house David Webb. Apple has taken up the ground and basement floors, which were previously occupied by VBH, a luxury handbag retailer. Here's Barlia, center, greeting reporters and photographers inside the location. "They're all uniquely different," he said of Apple's six Manhattan locations, which include the iconic Fifth Avenue store with its large glass cube and the Grand Central Terminal location situated atop a marble staircase.

Apple will staff the Madison Avenue location with 200 retail employees, who will now be part of the company's 2,000 total Manhattan retail staff, Barlia said, The company started with its first Manhattan store in 2002 in SoHo with iphone screen protector gel 40 employees there, Apple used historic pictures, like this one, of the former bank to reconstruct elements of the space that were taken away by past tenants, The teller windows along the wall were not brought back, Walking down the original marble staircase, customers can find the bank's original vault, which was recreated as a VIP showroom..

Here's a closer view of the vault's door. The Madison Avenue store isn't Apple's first with an original bank vault inside; the Paris Opera location also includes one. The vault for now will be used for trials of the Apple Watch Edition -- a smartwatch that costs up to $17,000 -- and in the future could host workshops and business customers. Among the elements Apple brought back were the chandeliers, shown here on the ground floor. Apple hired Brooklyn crafts workers to remake the lighting, using the historical photographs as a guide.

These aren't the original chandeliers, but are as close as Apple could get, Apple brought back other architectural pieces including the original paint color, which was uncovered iphone screen protector gel after removing layers of old paint, The floors, wainscoting and pilaster were remade using Botticino marble -- the Italian marble used at Grand Central Terminal -- to match the portico and staircase, Apple also kept the bank's original exterior bronze doors and restored the exterior facade of the building, The art on the walls are pieces taken by New York photographers of the Upper East Side using, of course, Apple's iPhone 6 smartphones..

BlackBerry declined to comment on Reuters' report, but said in an emailed statement that it remains "committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which provides security and productivity benefits that are unmatched."Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At this year's Mobile World Congress trade show, BlackBerry teased a smartphone with a curved display that wraps around the side, like the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, and a slide-out keyboard. It's unclear if this is the same slider device Reuters' sources said may run Android. BlackBerry also unveiled an all-touchscreen phone called the Leap at the show, a departure from its earlier line-up, which was totally dependent on BlackBerry's trademark physical keyboard.