Duane Reade Inc.

The School of Visual Arts will have a new dorm on the Lower East Side come August 2008. The 80,000-square-foot building will sit at the site of the former Duane Reade at Delancey and Ludlow streets.

"We were approached by Charles Blaichman, who is constructing the new building," Samantha Hoover, communications director for SVA, said recently. "The deal is structured as a 40-year capital lease with an option to buy at the end of the 40-year period."

It is unclear how many dorms the building will have, but Ms. Hoover said that it would be enough for 350 beds. She also noted that there will be commercial space on the ground floor, although she was not sure what businesses would be coming in. The Real Estate has calls in to Charles Blaichman for more details. We have not called the owner of Chickie Pig's yet, but we suspect that he will be happy to know that pizza-loving students will soon be only feet from his establishment.

- Mark Wellborn

After more than 100 years of existence, the New York Public Library is closing down.  read more »

It was a balmy fall afternoon on the Upper East Side, and there was a loose cannon in Citarella.  read more »

Stock up on 59-cent cans of Georgia hash while you still can. The Tribeca Trib reports that cut-rate retailer Ralph's Discount City is going condo.

Plans now pending before the Landmarks Preservation Commission call for the demolition of half of Ralph's and construction of a multi-level stone condo building with ground-level storefronts. The other half will get spruced up for future residents and new business tenants.

That proposal also indicates a new owner at 91-95 Chambers Street, though a broker involved with the sale says the deal is merely "under hard contract." Interesting. Can anyone submit plans to tear down a building they don't yet own?

Present owner Ralph Mizrahi wouldn't talk to the Trib. (Nor The Observer.) But his customers are more forthcoming:

"Get the hell outta here! Tell them they can't do that!" exclaimed Sandra Warren, 38, who works at 26 Federal Plaza "We very much need it around here. They have the same items at Duane Reade but it's much more expensive. We're talking about a dollar, but it's my dollar."

This reporter will personally miss Ralph's reasonable rates on Pilot gel pens. Just $3.19 for a two-pack! (Thirty cents less than the ubiquitous pharmacy charges.)  read more »

- Chris Shott

AIM IM with Matt Haber: 10:01 AM

Matt Haber: wanna hear something mildly funny? The Transom: always! i like my funny mild. Matt Haber: I was at Duane Reade and there was an in-house radio spot for Vogue and some special Marie-Antoinette contest. and they referred to the film as "this fall's blockbuster Marie-Antoinette." who thinks Sofia Copolla is making a blockbuster?? The Transom: well, no one who's seen it at the Conde Nast advanced screening, that's who. Matt Haber: besides which, period costume dramas tend not to bust blocks. as a rule.

ERICA: Tomorrow marks 8 months to the day since we got engaged.

A. Holy S*&$ B. I have yet to have my ring cleaned

I keep meaning to stop in at a jeweler to have it professionally cleaned, but my mother-in-law to be (MILTB) told me this ridiculous slash terrifying story where she swears a friend of a friend of her cousin Phyllis did just such a thing and had her ring replaced with a fake. I realize that the chances of this story being true are infinitesimal, but I’ve yet to stop in and have it done, so clearly there is a tiny part of me that truly believes Phyllis’s friend’s friend. My MILTB went on to say that the BEST and ONLY means one should be using to clean a ring like mine is Efferdent—as in denture cleaner Efferdent.

So, today I did it. I walked into Duane Reade with purpose and conviction, found a box of denture cleaner and bought it. I was so excited to come home and try it out, I could barely contain myself. I heated up some water in a small teacup, dropped in the efferdent tablet, plopped in my ring and stood there watching the water fizzing for five long minutes. Even my dog looked up at me as if to say "you’ve officially crossed the line.”  read more »

When I couldn’t handle the suspense for one second longer, I fished my ring out of the icky blue solution, rinsed it off and Bing. Bam. Boom. Seriously, WOW. I may have been temporarily blinded. Dammit all if my ring didn’t look just as sparkly and shiny as the day I got it.

Manhattan is as dry as a Dead Sea Scroll. And so are my thighs. Scratch, scratch, scratch.  read more »

AIMEE: My phone rings as I'm on the way to the subway for work, running late of course, always, always running late. "Not to stress you out...," my bridesmaid Jennie launches in on the other end. I know it's bad if she's using that sort of ominous construction. She's planning a wedding too. We've been pals since second grade and we're getting married a month apart, what are the odds? So she understands the importance of not freaking out the bride. She's doing her best hostage negotiator/ talk-the-crazy-person-down-from-the-ledge impersonation. "Not to stress you out...but I haven't gotten my dress yet and I thought I'd better tell you. When did you say some of the other girls got theirs?"  read more »

The New York City subway system isn’t for sissies, as a Jan. 3 incident proved.  read more »

Oct. 5, 20059:23 a.m.

9 pounds, 5 ounces  read more »

New York Methodist Hospital

Oct. 5, 2005 9:23 a.m. 9 pounds, 5 ounces New York Methodist Hospital    read more »

How many colorful neighborhoods are there in those outer boroughs? Sunday, the New York Times Magazine published the winning entry in its photography contest for college students: Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao's electronically manipulated photographs of landscapes along the No. 7 line in Queens. Liao, the magazine wrote, "has come to think of the train as a kind of river, like those along which ancient civilizations formed." Among the stops on Liao's trip upriver, according to the magazine's captions, were one in "Downtown, Flushing" (top) and one in "Chinatown, Flushing" (bottom). Or, as residents of Flushing might call them, "the northwest corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street" and "the southeast corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street." Note the Duane Reade sign and the holiday decorations.  read more »

Behind a door in an apartment building in the West 70’s lives a man who has been anonymously p  read more »

Upper East Side A.T.M.'sBitten by Credit-Card Sharks  read more »

Phony Patient Gives DocsBig Pain in the Neck  read more »

My name is Tim, and I am a father.  read more »

Minor Had Major-League NeedFor Meds and Love Gloves  read more »

The second-story man had placed additional stolen property by a window inside the location, leading  read more »

Charges have been dismissed against the wife of an Upper East Side doctor who claimed that his spous  read more »

Charges have been dismissed against the wife of an Upper East Side doctor who claimed that his spous  read more »

Recently in midtown, I ran into someone I despise, and because it was warm and sunny, we stopped to  read more »