"The pain was all worth it to attain the vibe they were going for: a chic place where New Yorkers could gather without having to shell out for a club membership. Instead, People's remains invite-only so that the owners can curate the vibe every night. It also helps with what they call the TikTok-ification of going out: "People will come into a restaurant, a bar, they'll order one drink, they'll get out the camera, they'll get out the light,"
"detail kept from when the space was Downtown Gallery, the first commercial space to exclusively show living American artists in a time when European fine art reigned supreme. "We actually had to rebuild [the skylight] twice," Hauer-King says. "And we had to do it during the two days we were closed," McDermott chimes in. The gallery's original one was too special to not recreate-and as an added homage, the People's backroom now functions as an actual salon, where the fine art on display rotates seasonally."
A skylight breaking through 17-foot ceilings was recreated and rebuilt twice during brief closures to preserve a historic architectural detail from the space's gallery past. The backroom operates as a salon with seasonally rotating fine art to honor the original Downtown Gallery legacy. People's maintains an invite-only policy to let owners curate the nightly atmosphere and to discourage the TikTok-driven habit of photographing outings and leaving immediately. The design brief prioritized ideas and hospitality alchemy over swatches, aiming for a lived-in "cool uncle" apartment vibe executed by Workstead across three rooms with varied proportions.
Read at Architectural Digest
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