At this secret NYC hangout, the drinks are strong and the vibes are stronger

In the City that Never Sleeps, there are unending possibilities for a night out. You can enjoy a quiet martini at a fancy hotel bar. You can ping your bestie Annabelle Bronstein and make a beeline for an exclusive, member’s-only establishment. Or you can dance your face off (and maybe get your jacket stolen) at one of the city’s innumerable clubs.

For Margot Hauer-King and Emmet McDermott, there had to be another kind of after-hours spot – ‘The kind of place one might sneak away to after dinner with close friends, knowing there would be even more familiar faces there,’ Hauer-King tells us.

Enter People’s, a new hybrid hospitality concept in a Greenwich Village townhouse that is equal parts late-night watering hole, speakeasy, art gallery, dance club and your rich friend-of-a-friend’s house.

Confused? Hauer-King explains: ‘We use “evening club” to try and capture the concept: yes you can drink, and yes there is a high emphasis on social, but our gallery is about bringing a broader cultural awareness and interest into the space,’ she says. ‘You can dance, but you don’t have to. You can find a cosy corner, or you can be on the stage. We’re here to set the scene, but not dictate how the show goes.’

To set that scene, Hauer-King and McDermott–both first-time hospitality entrepreneurs–tapped Ryan Mahoney of the Brooklyn-based design firm Workstead. ‘When we met the team we felt they fully shared our philosophy - that storytelling leads the way, and that details follow,’ Hauer-King says.

Fortunately, the building itself presented narrative gold. The townhouse, located at 113 West 13th Street, was the former home and gallery of Edith Gregor Halpert–New York’s first female gallery owner and one of the most influential American art dealers of her time. Born in Odessa in 1900 to a Jewish family, Halpert went on to make her fortune and eventually establish the Downtown Gallery in 1926. Halpert exhibited painters like Georgia O’Keefe, Arthur Dove, and Jacob Lawrence, and her patrons included socialite Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. ‘She was this super cool woman working at an amazing time in history, so we were really inspired by her story, the art, and the gallery,’ Mahoney says.

People’s, which is located in the building’s garden level, is neatly organized into a sequence of three primary rooms–a low-ceilinged antechamber; a middle salon; and, finally, at the apartment’s back, an airy gallery, crowned with a greenhouse-like skylight. ‘The vibe changes from space to space,’ Mahoney says. ‘The architecture lends itself to that.’

When visitors enter through a velvet curtain, they find themselves in a cozy ‘parlour’ area, complete with an original fireplace. Here, you can grab a drink at the main bar and head to a cozy booth where banquettes, upholstered in chocolate velvet, are ensconced by walls clad in a sumptuous moiré-print wallpaper and punctuated by hand-painted fabric sconces.

‘We had Edith Halpert in our mind,’ Mahoney notes. ‘She wore all these beautiful suits with different patterns and textures, so we wanted it to have a feminine kind of energy.’

Venture further into People’s and the mood gets sexier. ‘Margot kept saying in the second space, she really wanted people to be dancing,’ the designer says. In this middle lounge, Mahoney and his team covered the walls in a luxurious plum-coloured velvet while the ceiling got tricked out with softly-gleaming bronze. Cut-glass light fixtures and polished timber furnishings cast glimmers around the room. The design team intentionally selected materials with reflective qualities—materials that ‘had a little bit of mystery to them.’

‘When you see the space with all the lights turned on, it's one thing, but it’s meant to be seen in dimmed light,’ Mahoney adds.

The third and final room is People’s most impressive moment and doubtlessly social media catnip (though little bronze plaques remind visitors that People’s has a no-photo policy). A massive timber bar–repropsed from an antique French bookshelf– facilitates chilled martinis (there’s one named for Rockefeller) and morsels like tuna toasts and caviar. Once again, the building’s 20th-century proprietor was close at hand: ‘We decided to cover all of the walls with soft yellow curtains. I thought it was really fun, because it kind of spoke to these dressed up, fancier, old world apartments in New York City,’ Mahoney explains.

Though the digs are indeed something to behold, Hauer-King, the daughter of London restaurateur Jeremy King, wanted good service to be just as integral to the experience (growing up, she would get a treat if she could remember the color of a waiter’s eyes). ‘[Dad] taught me that service can never be an afterthought, and that even if your martinis are freezing, people won’t come back to a place if they aren’t made to feel valued,’ she says.

It’s clear that patrons are indeed coming back, including a celebrity or two. A DJ booth has been installed in the middle lounge and customers have been known to dance atop the tables and Halpert-inspired striped sofas. Fortunately, Workstead consulted a sound engineer, and plush carpets throughout help mitigate party beats.

But that still doesn’t fend off a few design-related accidents. One of the casualties included a jellyfish-like Venetian glass lamp designed by Sophie Lou Jacobson that retails for around $4,700. 'Not three months into operations, a client bumped his rear end into the side table where the lamp sat, and sent it tumbling to the floor, smashing it into a million pieces,' says McDermott.

'We have since replaced the lamp with flowers.'

People's is located at 13 W 13th Street, New York, NY and is open by RSVP only.