Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活), which runs one of the nation’s largest bookstore chains, yesterday denied that it would soon end operations of its 24-hour bookstore on Dunhua S Road in Taipei amid preparations for an urban planning project.
“We thank everyone for their concern for the bookstore. The lease for the bookstore expires in 2020. We will continue to operate based on the terms of the lease,” the company said in a statement issued yesterday afternoon.
Eslite’s Dunnan store attracts many tourists to the world’s first 24-hour bookstore.
The bookstore is the company’s first and began operating 24 hours in 1999.
The store was chosen by CNN as one of the world’s “coolest” stores and drew interest from other international news agencies.
The Eslite branch occupies the first and second floors of the Dunhua Financial Building (敦南金融大樓), as well as three underground floors.
Media reports said the floors have been purchased by the Lin Yuan Group (霖園集團), which the reports said wants to convert them for mixed-use commercial purposes through an urban planning project that is to include a five-star hotel.
This led to speculation that the bookstore might cease to exist.
Cathay Life Insurance (國泰人壽), a subsiduary of Lin Yuan Group, issued a statement saying that the company has never owned the floors used by the bookstore.
Cathay Life Insurance said it owns no titles in the Dunnan Financial Building, having sold ownership of the third to 10th floors of the building, as well as parking lots on the fourth and fifth underground floors.
Exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹) said the bookstore is a “cultural landmark of Taipei.”
He wrote on Facebook that he would forever condemn Cathay Life Insurance if it were to close the bookstore to make way for a five-star hotel.
Additional reporting by CNA
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS