Dedicated members of The Wing, the embattled, formerly women’s-only co-working collective that launched in NYC’s Flatiron District in 2017, were startled on Wednesday to receive an email informing them that all of The Wing’s locations would be shutting down, effective immediately.
“The operating environment since reopening our six current locations of The Wing, 14 months ago has continued to prove extremely challenging,” The Wing’s email to members, reviewed by The Daily Beast, reads. “With the backdrop of the Covid pandemic and increasing global economic challenges, we have been unable to recover and grow the level of active membership and event activity necessary to run a financially sustainable operation. As a consequence, we are very sorry to say that all of The Wing locations will be closing permanently, and members will no longer have access with immediate effect.”
The email goes on to explain that subscribers will be able to use their memberships at other locations run by IWG, a global workspace network company that bought a majority stake in The Wing in 2021, through September 30th.
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A Q&A attached to the email addressing why The Wing is shutting down merely reiterates the content quoted above.
“People increasingly want flexibility over where and how they work, and we have seen a shift in demand to flexible workspaces nearer to employees’ homes, providing convenient locations to meet, collaborate and work,” Mark Dixon, the founder and CEO of IWG, told The Daily Beast in a statement.
“Members of The Wing were not using the existing six downtown locations and instead wanted access to centers in suburban locations, closer to where they live,” Dixon added. “As a result, the six downtown centers were closed and members were provided with access to all of the same facilities, services and events in a far greater number of locations via IWG’s network of more than 1,000 centers in the U.S. and 3,500 globally.”
When The Wing first launched, enthusiastic New Yorkers flocked to its millennial-pink premises, eager to work on their laptops surrounded by plush furniture, snacks, and with access to amenity-laden bathrooms.
The Wing, helmed by former CEO (and ex-spokesperson for comptroller Scott Stringer) Audrey Gelman, expertly marketed itself as a girlboss-centric progressive paradise where Hillary Clinton might drop in for a book club meeting at any moment.
But in 2019, The Wing took a knock when it was forced to abandon its women-only policy after a DC man filed a $12 million gender discrimination lawsuit against the company.
That was embarrassing, but things truly started to crumble in earnest in 2020. When the pandemic hit, The Wing, which had been busying itself with opening new locations across the United States, lost 95 percent of its revenue and furloughed or laid off most of its staff 0f 475.
In June of 2020, on the same day that many employees at The Wing announced a digital walkout in support of Wing employees of color, who had criticized the company for failing to “practice the intersectional feminism that it preaches,” Gelman resigned as CEO.
“I will miss many things about The Wing, especially the fact that conferences rooms were named after famous women and fictional characters—there is something deeply perverted about saying you’re ‘inside of Gloria Steinem,’” Marcella Zimmermann, CEO of Digital Counsel, told The Daily Beast.
However, Zimmermann added, “You would think that a coworking space dedicated to girlbosses would at least give us more than 12 hours notice the weekend before Armory Week and Fashion Week.”
