Were the Duane Reade stores of NYC named after a real man? If so, who was he?

gtho4

Duane Reade Inc. was named after streets:- .. company that started in late 1959. It was founded by three of the Cohen brothers, and they actually operated three pharmacies in the southern part of Manhattan. Their principle really was to capture the working audience that was so densely populated in the financial district. And they did a good job, featuring mostly health and beauty aide, and resisted any pharmacy development. After a few years, they begrudgingly leased space to independent pharmacists in their stores. They had three stores. Two of them were rather small. They had a larger store on Broadway, which had a basement. The Broadway store was located on Broadway between Duane and Reade streets. Since the other two stores were also downtown, they would use the basement of the third store to collect their receipts and do their administrative work. They used to fly a flag under a different name %97 I think it was Thrift. They were attacked by a number of other chains nationally for using the name Thrift, so they had to change their name. When it came time to choose a name, they asked their workers what name they should use. Most of their workers didn't speak English very well and used to always take the receipts at the end of the day and say, 'I'm going to Duane and Reade,' meaning the Broadway store between Duane and Reade, as opposed to the other Broadway store they had. So it became known as Duane Reade by the workers, and the Cohen brothers decided to adopt that name. www.twst.com/notes/articles/paa226.html Mar 03 03, 6:32 AM