Some of you may remember the first time you walked into a good WeWork. The lobby felt like a crossroads, early-stage companies and established ones sharing the same coffee machine, a genuine sense that something was beginning. It felt, briefly, like a new kind of work culture.
That was ten years ago. WeWork is now essentially a contemporary Regus. I stopped going.
I have been a remote worker for fifteen years. Headquarters in San Francisco, Toronto, London. The kind of arrangement where you are always responsible for finding your own place to sit and think. Most of the time that meant somewhere with flat surfaces and acceptable coffee, a place designed to be cleaned easily rather than worked in comfortably. A waiting room with wifi.
Then a few months ago I walked into The Malin in SoHo, New York. I was skeptical going in. I had been burned before by photographs that made a sterile room look warm through some careful cropping and flattering light.
It was different. You could feel it before you had sat down. The space was well designed in the way that a great boutique hotel lobby is well designed. Someone had made actual decisions about it. Wood surfaces, real furniture, a mix of open areas and conference rooms and phone booths and private offices that were actually private, not glass observation tanks. But more than the physical space, there was energy in the room.
Whatever was happening in that room, it made the work easier.
I sat down and worked for four hours without really noticing. That is the thing I keep coming back to. Whatever was happening in that room, it made the work easier, and I have stopped trying to name what it was.
Since that first visit I have been to their NoMad and Flatiron locations. Each one was better than the last. I pay for a day pass every time I am in the city. I keep going back. I am not paid by them. I paid for every visit.