Lower Manhattan and the mystery of Duane Reade

I visited lower Manhattan today. Besides walking around the financial district and the Battery Park area, I saw City Hall and the court buildings located close to the Brooklyn Bridge.

I don't know if something serious was going on though because a huge area of the buildings was roped off and there was almost no traffic in the area, which seems almost unimagineable.

I'm utterly astounded by the prevalence of Duane Reade drugstores in the city. There's a Duane Reade Pharmacy on almost every block. On top of that, there are two streets downtown that are named Duane and Reade. I was so intrigued that I decided to go inside one of the stores today. Lets just say that the floor layout was completely bizarre.

So I decided to search out what is going on. New York Magazine wrote an interesting article published June 6, 2005 on The Mystery of Duane Reade. It's an interesting read and explained a lot about the puzzling number and layout of Duane Reade stores.