The very first place I stayed when I arrived in New York City was a 6,000 square foot loft on Broome Street. My sister’s friend let me crash in one of the lofted mezzanine areas. The ceilings were 18 feet high. There were eight cast iron Corinthian columns, one tiny kitchenette, a toilet, and a makeshift shower. The building had a manual cage elevator that had to be returned to the ground floor after each use, so most of the time we took the stairs. We were on the fifth floor.
The place felt more like a kibbutz or a youth hostel than an apartment. There were always at least eight people coming and going to sleep, work, or hang out. Everyone was an aspiring actor, musician, writer, student, or entrepreneur. We mostly worked nights in restaurants to pay for the pursuit of our passions during the day. It was a great arrangement.
SoHo at the time was full of setups like this. These lofts were in JLWQ zones, Joint Live Work Quarters, and were zoned specifically for artists. Living and working in the same space wasn’t a lifestyle trend. It was just how it worked.
Some of us eventually landed in the corporate world. Finance. Real estate. Law. Medicine. Advertising. When we showed up in those fields, not all of us did it with passion. Sometimes it was a means to an end. Sometimes it turned into a calling.
Loft buildings were filled with people living and working in the same space. Office buildings were filled with people working.
Somewhere along the way, that changed.
We still want to live and work from home. But most of us don’t want to work the same way, five days a week, from nine to five, in the same place, forever.
No matter what you hear or read, the commercial office market is still struggling. Covid proved what many already suspected. For a lot of jobs, it is entirely possible to be productive, efficient, and focused while working from home. And if you ask ten people under forty where they would prefer to work, eight of them will say home. Or more specifically, not from the same office every day.
The shiny new Class A office buildings, the ones with the best light, air, design, and amenities, are doing just fine. CEOs have insisted that their workforces come back in person, and those buildings have benefitted.
But a large portion of the office market continues to struggle. So landlords are spending enormous sums adding amenities not for workers, but for CEOs. For the leaders who still believe that a ping pong table, a gym, or an F1 simulator will somehow lure people back into the office.
Most workers aren’t staying home because the office lacks a juice bar. They’re staying home because they’ve tasted flexibility, autonomy, and control over their time.
The future of work probably isn’t about choosing between home or office. It’s about accepting that work no longer fits neatly into a single box, and designing our lives and our buildings with that reality in mind.
On Broome Street, we didn’t live and work that way because someone made it fun. We did it because we cared about the work. We were driven by the pursuit itself, not by a ping pong table or a perk. The space didn’t need to entertain us. It just needed to get out of the way. And maybe that’s the part worth remembering. People don’t show up for the toys. They show up when the work matters.
Let’s do this!