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The historic Scribner Book Store, whose customers included ErnestHemingway, Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald during its 75 yearson Fifth Avenue, is closing its doors early next year. The 10-story building at 597 Fifth Ave., designed in 1913 by Beaux Arts architect Ernest Flagg for his brother-in-law Charles Scribner, was bought by the Benetton Group from the Duane Reade drugstore chain, said Rizzoli International Bookstores Inc., which owns Scribner. The store is searching for a new location.
Benetton plans to rent Scribner's space at a rate of "whatever the market will bear," said Frank Mariani, vice president of 597 Fifth Avenue Realty Corp., a Benetton subsidiary.
The Benetton family, based in Treviso, Italy, bought the building in June "purely for real estate interests," Benetton spokesman Sally Fisher said yesterday. "There is no intention to have a Benetton store in the building," she said. Real estate...