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Take A Virtual Tour Of The "Ducked Up" SoHo House Location On The LES
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 7, 2016
Modified Mar 8, 2016
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Mar 7, 2016
Modified Mar 8, 2016
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It’s tough to open a private club for creative people on the Lower East Side these days. First you have to spend $8.7 million on a historic building, then a few million more to renovate it. Will local artists prefer a rooftop pizza counter or a small-plates gastropub? The number of ottoman swatches alone is enough to make you reconsider your master's thesis on “casual chic.” But three years after acquiring a historic factory and a liquor license, the SoHo House’s Ludlow Street location is just a few weeks away from opening its doors to everyone in the community who has $1,800 in disposable income.
The great part about The Ludlow House is that it’s not just one room full of Crate & Barrel furniture, but many.
According to the club’s website, the building’s four stories will house two restaurants and bars, a rooftop “conservatory,” and two separate clubs “within a club”—a Russian nesting doll of mediocrity.
Here is The Living Room, which looks like a great place to pretend to leaf through a Robert Capa coffee table book and angrily finger your smartphone. Shelves and shelves of liquor make it a great place for “working.”
After you’ve brainstormed the hottest new app that will protect users from having to see homeless people, you can head upstairs to “Lou’s Kitchen & Bar” for their “all-day American-Italian menu.” There is an 80% chance this “club bar” will serve chicken fingers. Grazie for the hospitaliano, Lou!
Do you need a place to screen that indie film you made about a group of troubled 20-somethings living hard and fast on the Lower East Side? You might need to use The Dark Room’s screening room. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to start your own zine parodying popular literature (Jonathan FranZine) but the Wi-Fi in The Forward Building’s rec room is hella slow. The Velvet Room is designed for “members events,” and other simulacrums of culture.
Maybe the coolest part about The Ludlow House is the “covered rooftop garden.” Looking at plants makes you both respect them and want to eat them, so it also has a “vegetarian Asian restaurant.” But what if you crave flesh? Do you have to go back downstairs and see Lou again? Finish reading the ad copy, dude! This is “a vegetarian Asian restaurant also serving crispy duck.” This $1,800 annual membership pays for itself! (Only $900, if you're under the age of 27—you don't wanna put too much strain on Dad's Amex!)
Per the restrictions on The Ludlow House’s liquor license, which was granted by the State Liquor Authority after it was rejected by the Community Board, there will be no booze allowed on the roof deck (Roof Duck? lol) and members will only be allowed to stand outside the rooftop garden/vegetarian Asian restaurant that also serves crispy duck from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m.
When the SoHo House announced that it was opening a Lower East Side outpost, a press rep emailed to say that the owners were “particularly excited about our relationship with the Educational Alliance, providing this Lower East Side non-profit organisation [sic] free use of a community space in the building.”
We asked the Educational Alliance and the press rep for The Ludlow House for more details on this and will update if they respond.
Artists and creative people need a lot of help, and The Ludlow House is currently hiring.
[UPDATE]: The president and CEO of the Educational Alliance, Alan van Capelle, sent this statement in an email: “Educational Alliance continues to be excited about the partnership with Ludlow House. We recently met with Ludlow House to discuss the different ways Educational Alliance intends to use the space being given us and to brainstorm creative ways to bring our communities together."
Another tipster who has seen the space described it as a "windowless room in the basement, suitable for a storage space."
Tagged
ludlow house
soho house
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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