Over the next few months a striking piece of symbolism will take place around the mighty General Motors building on Fifth Avenue in New York. Apple, the tech group, plans to move out of the basement where it has operated a flagship store-cum-tourist attraction for the past decade, underneath a now-iconic glass cube.

The tech group will not be disappearing altogether from this prime site, tucked on the southeast corner of Central Park. Instead, it is renovating the basement to cope with soaring numbers of visitors, and, later this year, it plans to move “temporarily” into a space on the ground floor of the General Motors building next door.

In a neat twist of timing, FAO Schwarz, the equally iconic American toy store, has decided to vacate its flagship location in the GM building on July 15 “to realise meaningful rent savings” in the face of “the continuing rising costs of operating a retail location on Fifth Avenue”. The store has not yet revealed where its new home will be.