For New Yorkers, putting on a shabby facade in a candlelit club is a right of passage. When it comes to cool, unmarked exteriors are great, coteries tucked away inside the walls sound essential and without the masses of crying bodies a necessary evil. For the peoplegallery and club owned by Margot Hauer-King and Emmet McDermott officially unveiled at the Greenwich Village social scene on Dec. 16, reaches each mark with purpose.
This space, currently covered by a construction gate in front of a partially abandoned townhouse, opens up in stages. First, it’s warm. The bright red vestibule, large enough to seat four people, including two hosts, their list and place, softened one’s nerves, especially on a night (like that of Dec. 11) that was cold and wet. Through the curtain, the next two rooms are richly decorated—made of deep purple with soft lounges, a small fireplace-lit area and an eye-catching work by Aglaé Bassens called. A cat’s catpart of the first People show of five artists, which will change every quarter. This plum and rouge windowless progression culminates in a church-like gallery room that is twice the length of its flexible front.
Natural light pours from the pyramid’s large sky onto the cream walls, which play a major role in the installation, with works by Preslav Kostov, Jiang Cheng, Emma Kohlmann and Amie Dickie. Guests are seated at small tables facing each other, with one chocolate brown booth curved around the walls, set back by the entrance and a second, larger bar on the back wall. The establishment is open, with plenty of room for a server to sing along to Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” as she checks empty glasses early in the evening (Glassies open from 5pm to dusk). The gold-plated gallery room feels like a sacred fishbowl as the rain pours down on the glass roof 20 or so feet above.
From December 10 to 12, Hauer-King and McDermott invited friends, family and media to preview the space over champagne, martinis, pickled crudités, Castelvetrano olives with lemon, fans of magenta endive with a creamy green dip like pre-made cheese. wedge, and caviar. My bad breath was about to enter the burger, but the fireless kitchen had not yet reached its full potential. Considering Elizabeth Street Hospitality, the team behind the Michelin-starred Musket Room and Raf’s, has developed the People’s food menu, I hope it delivers hot plates (and other kitsch bites like Banoffee pie) with success.
Last week, from December 3, when Hauer-King and McDermott poured their first drink with a soft but less than two. soft holes, Of people were full. Over the weekend, news spread of an illicit night out, involving Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson, who said. DeuxMoi he was seen soaking in the club on Saturday night.
“It’s definitely a baptism of fire to open something with a community that is ready to go. There was nothing ‘soft’ about our opening,” Hauer-King told the Observer. “We have a complete rock band that hit the mark and delivered the People’s experience with passion from the start.”
Despite starting with a white-hot spark in the downtown area, People’s is Hauer-King and McDermott’s first-ever hospitality business. McDermott is a journalist and film producer, formerly a news editor at The Hollywood Reporter. Worked on projects like Netflix’s “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch” and Hulu’s “Queenmaker: The Making of an It Girl.”
“I was drawn to journalism because of my fascination with people and real stories that help us get along, especially on the margins. It’s the very impetus that drove my documentary work and I believe it’s the engine behind People’s,” McDermott told the Observer. “People’s is a new prism of fiction. It’s an excuse to sink into each other’s humanity and be honest again.”
Hauer-King grew up in the industry (her father is UK restaurateur Jeremy King), but pursued a career in marketing after graduating from Brown University, and is now CMO at Miroma Group. Through People’s, Hauer-King has seen how much of his father and his lessons about the industry have stayed with him. And now, with McDermott pen in hand at the marble cocktail table, he’s writing a new story with the tastemaker’s ink coursing through his veins.
“[My dad] he taught me a lot: that good service never loses its sense of humor, and that communication is more important than perfection. “Making people feel like there’s no place they’d rather be is a real gift to nurture,” Hauer-King said. “Now I think a lot of ‘making it my own’ came from my collaboration with Emmet: We created something together. It wasn’t just me, but us.”
McDermott and Hauer-King were introduced by a mutual friend a few years ago, and clicked quickly after realizing they saw the world the same way. As their friendship grew, so did Bantu’s mind.
“We share the same vision—to bring back what once happened in New York, which seemed to have disappeared 10 years ago. “The home of the scene that is orphaned because of spaces like the Beatrice Inn,” said McDermott. “For us, people feel real before we start.”
When they first looked at the property at 113 W. 13th Street in February 2023, Hauer-King called it a “pirate ship.” It has been completely ignored since 2020, when Spain, Bohemian looking for tapas, was closed after running for 54 years. Between signing the lease in November and opening in December 2024, Hauer-King and McDermott worked diligently to restore all the salvageable features and create the space of their dreams.
From preserving the building’s past to the name itself, Hauer-King and McDermott aim to honor what this niche cultural hub represents. For the people refers to the People’s Art Guild, a radical artists’ union founded in 1915. provided an alternative to a fine art gallery by displaying avant-garde and contemporary art in apartments and residences on the Lower East Side. It aimed to enrich the lives of immigrants and artists through communication and outreach.
The townhouse was formerly the Downtown Gallery, Greenwich Village’s first commercial art space and an icon of art and equal rights. Edith Halpert opened the gallery in 1926 when she was just 26 years old. Today considered a leading authority on American art, Halpert has championed legacies such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Max Weber, Stuart Davis and Yasuo Kuniyoshi and has been raised the work of Black artists in the beginning, before many other major galleries did so. In 1940, Halpert moved the Downtown Gallery uptown in 1940, where it continued to thrive until his death 30 years later. Today, the Downtown Gallery is still known as one of the birthplaces of American Modernism.
“The Downtown gallery was always a social gallery, and it doubled as a salon, and we wanted to honor and lean into that,” Hauer-King said. “We wanted a job that would add to the area, not steal from it. There will be a story in each of our programs.”
The owners work closely with curator Anne Parke to showcase emerging artists who support People’s past and present, who are deeply rooted in community and storytelling. Prices are not listed, and if patrons are interested in the piece, they will be given Parke’s information to talk directly through the buying process.
“The point is, if you like something, the whole team has the ability to put it together for you at that moment,” Hauer-King said, echoing the unusual sentiments of the organization and gallery that preceded it. “People should remember that a handshake at 1 am is still a handshake!”
