Duane Reade’s Miracle Makeover

For decades, the Duane Reade drugstore chain offered one of New York’s rawest shopping experiences, with the ambiance of a DMV, with really narrow aisles, maybe located in Times Square circa 1973. The layouts were labyrinthine and the merchandise disorganized. The staff was so famously sullen that the blog “I Hate Duane Reade: Service from Hell” used to come up first when Googling the company. In 2007, New York magazine asked the actress Martha Plimpton, a lifelong resident of the city, what she hated most about living there. “The dead-eyed pharmacy people at Duane Reade,” she said. “It’s always a journey into the heart of darkness.”

Now there’s the Duane Reade on 40 Wall St. The chain’s 254th store, just down the block from the New York Stock Exchange and across from a Tiffany’s, is like an extravagant apology to the city. It occupies a 22,000-square-foot space with 28-foot-high ceilings, graceful archways, marble columns, and a gilded air. The Rockefellers ran a bank there. Now Duane Reade offers $10 manicures where David Rockefeller’s office used to be.