The Wing, an all-women coworking space that defined the era of “millennial pink” and “girlboss” is shutting down for good.
The coworking company emailed its members on Tuesday that its remaining six coworking spots will be closed, effective immediately.
wow the wing is closing forever pic.twitter.com/y81FN0PwOu
— melissa kravitz hoeffner (@melissabethk) August 31, 2022
Founded in New York City in late 2016, The Wing had expanded to 11 locations in two countries at its peak, Insider reported.
In 2018, The Wing had raised nearly $43 million. At the time, co-founder Audrey Gelman said that women all over the world were inquiring about getting their own all-female coworking space in their city.
“We’ve been blown away since day one,” Gelman told Entrepreneur at the time.
“We’ve had members start companies together. We’ve seen lawyers leave their white-shoe law firms and start their own firms together, and then they represent other women at The Wing,” she added.
But things soon began to unravel for The Wing, and not just because of the pandemic.
In March 2020, the NYT published a story about employees at The Wing saying they were overworked and underpaid and had to deal with members being “casually racist” to employees, the outlet wrote, and that Gelman’s perfectionism created “a culture of fear and secrecy,” one former employee told the Times.
Gelman stepped down in June 2020 and publicly apologized in October 2020.
As for its now permanent closure, as Insider noted, social media users seem more concerned about getting a hold of The Wing’s furniture.
see you all at the wing sample sale
— lil gem salad (@faggyfederation) August 31, 2022
The company confirmed the closure to Entrepreneur via a customer service email.
“The Refresh Club, Inc. d/b/a The Wing has permanently closed,” the email read. “We have arranged for workspace and membership needs to be fulfilled by IWG.”
IWG is a global coworking collection of spaces that’s been around since 2011. Its website says it adds a new space every day, on average.
IWG’s CEO, Mark Dixon said that the locations were closed because “Members of The Wing were not using the existing six downtown locations and instead wanted access to centers in suburban locations.”
“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,” the company added.
The company did not respond to questioning about the furniture issue.
