To enter 52 Mercer Street, a five-story building in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, on a Wednesday this past June, a visitor had to shimmy through a gaggle of paparazzi and three bouncers issuing wristbands and whisking ticketed guests to a single elevator to the top floor. Inside, thehad been transformed into an assembly hall.
Everything a member of the Wing touches has been selected for its Wing-iness, from the art by women, transgender, and nonbinary artists to the jelly on the toast in the café. But if the Wing has become a symbol of the times, it is also a business, and one with a huge sum of venture capital from investors who expect lightning-fast growth. The Wing is often compared with WeWork, which in nine years has opened more than 525 locations and signed up 500,000 members--and which managed to lose $1.9 billion in 2018.
Gelman's fashion choices are similarly intentional, a reflection of the kind of diverse feminine power scene she's cultivating. One day, she'll wear Vans and vintage denim overalls and show off the tattoo on her right triceps that reads"Killa"; another, she'll seem poised for high tea in ruffled white Celine mules and a pink gingham top.
Carrie Goldberg was skeptical of the Wing, until the moment she walked into one."I almost cried. It was a Garden of Eden to me." At the time, Gelman was dating Ilan Zechory, a co-founder of lyrics-annotation company Genius . Zechory advised her to find a co-founder. In the course of taking every meeting anyone suggested, for money or for a partner, she met the son of Michael Kassan, founder of the consultancy MediaLink. Instead of investing, he introduced her to his wife, Lauren Kassan, who was a business-development executive at the startup ClassPass. Over coffee, the two women hit it off.
When I asked a Wing spokesperson how the company responded to the investigation, and to explain under what circumstances men were now permitted, she leaned forward intensely--and evaded the question:"We have never asked someone's gender identity on any application. Cis women are not the only people who have suffered gender oppression," she said, using the term for people who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Kassan remains the steady hand of the operation--manager, budgeter, and Gelman's frequent reality check."I fly into the solar system, and she keeps me weighted down to earth," Gelman says. Over the past two years, the co-founders have surrounded themselves with skilled executives from the likes of SoulCycle, Airbnb, Snap, and Casper. The result is an all-women executive team.
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