It sure feels like Duane Reade is swallowing New York City by the street-corner, squashing mom-and-pop pharmacies with their Chase ATMs and premium bed bug mattress encasements. But is Duane Reade really as ubiquitous as it seems, or is there some other chain drugstore whose proliferation rivals even this most fungal monster?
Ben Wellington, the man behind NYC Open Data analysis site I Quant NY, mapped out "every single lot in NYC" to reveal the proximity of drugstore chain clusters. Of the key players—Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS and, of course, Duane Reade—the latter proved its perceived dominance of Manhattan:
Once Wellington left the Big Island and looked at NYC as a whole, though, a new winner emerged:
So, to clarify, though Duane Reade made up about 56 percent of Manhattan's market share, Pennsylvania transplant Rite Aid trampled it in the boroughs, making up 59 percent of the market share in The Bronx, 48 percent in Brooklyn and 37 percent in Queens—Staten Island's two favorites were Walgreens and CVS, because Staten Island is and forever will be a suburb.
Sorry, Duane Reade—we'll always have the handjobs.
