Everyone in Boston and New York is aware of the sports rivalry that exists between the two cities. Now comes news that Apple has built its largest retail store in North America on Boylston Street in Boston, beating out the current front-runner...you guessed it: Apple's outlet on West 14th Street in Manhattan. Just one more thing, we can boast about in Boston.

In fact, in honor of the Red Sox, the store was adorned during construction with a replica of Fenway Park's Green Monster. But yesterday, the green construction cloak came off and the media was allowed inside. What they saw, according to the Boston Globe, was a "finely tuned retail machine."

The new store, which opens this evening at 6 pm ET, boast three floors of retail space, with the ground floor covering computers and the second floor devoted completely to iPods and iPhones. While this is clearly every Mac fan boy's wet dream, as if that weren't enough the third floor is completely dedicated to education and service. That's right, a whole floor just for to education and service with a whopping 165 staffers hired to take care of every customer's needs. Talk about customer relationship management.

Meanwhile Mac User reports, that Apple took this opportunity to also spruce up the Apple Store web site making it easier to "navigate and find information," just in case you don't want to leave the comfort of your home to go out in the world and interact with 165 of Boston's finest computer minds.

So this Boston-New York thing just won't go away. As the Boston Globe pointed out, maybe this is payback for moving the Mac World trade show from Boston to New York in 2002 or maybe in 2008, Boston is just to the place to be, but whatever the reason, I know I'm looking for an excuse to go to Boston to check this place out.