See inside the Wing’s new HQ in the East Village’s historic Stuyvesant Polyclinic building

As co-working firm The Wing continues to grow, they’ve moved into a new home that takes the idea of a corporate headquarters to the next, uber-cozy level. The company has taken over all 22,000 square feet and four floors of the former Stuyvesant Polyclinic building at 137 Second Avenue with a sprawling office space that fits the brand’s design-forward signature: pastel colors, branded wallpaper, chic custom furniture and a host of features for women, including a lactation room.

As 6sqft previously reported, the building at 137 Second Avenue is connected to the Ottendorfer Public Library at 135, the first free public library in New York City. Both were commissioned by Anna and Oswald Ottendorfer as a way to support the German immigrant community of the East Village, which at the time was known as Little Germany.

Built in 1854 as a health care facility for sick German immigrants who otherwise couldn’t afford treatment, the building was designed by German-born architect William Schickel in the neo-Italian Renaissance style, with Philadelphia pressed brick facades ornamented in terra cotta, a relatively new building material at the time. In 1880, Anna Ottendorfer donated $68,000 to construct a wing devoted to women—a nice connection to The Wing’s mission of empowering women today.

The Wing had to upgrade their HQ as the company scaled from four original staffers to over 150 who found themselves scattered across several locations throughout the city. Designed by an in-house team (like all their co-working spaces) the renovation was intended to make the office feel and flow like a home, with a central kitchen and communal workspaces intended to feel more like a living room.

There are also more private areas, including ten conference rooms named after games (Ms. Pac-Man, Metroid), books (The Baby-Sitters Club, The Joy Luck Club, Nettie, Celie), and historical schools (Spelman, Radcliffe), in addition to a quiet room, a lactation room, and an outdoor patio.

Since The Wing opened their first co-working space in Flatiron in 2016, the firm has gone on to open eight more locations across five cities in the U.S., with plans to debut their first international space in London this fall.

RELATED:

• Co-working firm The Wing to lease the East Village’s former Stuyvesant Polyclinic building
• Rebranded WeWork opens an on-demand workspace and cafe in Flatiron
• 15 things you didn’t know about the East Village

Images by Tory Williams; courtesy of The Wing