The McKittrick Hotel (Sleep No More)

530 West 27th Street | Chelsea | built 1920

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1989

    The Sound Factory opens in a converted Chelsea warehouse

    In 1989 Christine Visca, Phil Smith and Richard Grant open the Sound Factory nightclub in a converted warehouse at 530 West 27th Street. DJ Junior Vasquez, connected to the ballroom houses Xtravaganza and Aviance, helps carry Harlem's ballroom scene into downtown clubs.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1995

    Police pressure shuts the Sound Factory; Phil Smith opens Twilo

    After police harassment, the owners close the Sound Factory in 1995 following six years at 530 West 27th Street. Co-owner Phil Smith turns the same venue into a new nightclub, Twilo, which operates there until 2001.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1997

    Junior Vasquez returns to the old Sound Factory site, now Twilo, to a booth built for him

    After the Sound Factory closed in February 1995, DJ Junior Vasquez held residencies at the Tunnel and at ArenA in the Palladium. In 1997 he came back to the site of the original Sound Factory, by then called Twilo, where the room was remodeled with a DJ booth designed for him alone and new sound technology called Phazon. His residency there lasted until May 2001, when the city ordered the venue closed.

    “In 1997, he returned to the former site of the original Sound Factory, now called Twilo.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 2001

    A Giuliani-era crackdown closes the Twilo nightclub

    Twilo closes in early 2001 after years of pressure from Mayor Rudy Giuliani's quality-of-life campaign. City authorities claim the club misused private ambulances to conceal drug overdose victims, while management says the ambulance was obtained on the city's recommendation. The closure ends six years of dance parties at 530 West 27th Street.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2007

    A man dies in an elevator-shaft fall after a scuffle at BED New York, a Chelsea nightclub in a converted warehouse

    In early February 2007 a fight at BED New York, a Chelsea club known for providing beds for lounging patrons and once featured on Sex and the City, ended in a death. Police said a manager pushed a 35-year-old man against the sixth-floor elevator doors, which opened, and he fell four floors onto the elevator car. The manager was charged with criminally negligent homicide. The man's sister said he had been trying to make peace in a dispute.

    Source: nbcnews.com

  6. 2011

    The McKittrick Hotel, a hotel that never existed, takes over the warehouses with an invented 1939 history

    When Emursive turned the former nightclub warehouses into the McKittrick Hotel, it gave the venue a fictional past. Its website says the hotel was built in 1939 as New York's most decadent and was shut two days after World War II broke out, six weeks before its scheduled opening. In fact, the roughly 100,000 square feet across three adjoining warehouses had earlier served as several nightclubs, among them Twilo and Guesthouse.

    “…built in 1939 to be New York's "most decadent" hotel but was shut down two days after the outbreak of World War II…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 2011

    Emursive buys the former Twilo space for Sleep No More

    In 2011 the immersive theater company Emursive buys the West 27th Street space, which had been several nightclubs after Twilo closed. It becomes the home of the show Sleep No More in a venue called the McKittrick Hotel.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2024

    Sleep No More announces its final New York performance, set for January 5, 2025

    In 2024 the producers announced that Sleep No More, Punchdrunk's immersive take on Macbeth, would close on January 5, 2025. A Stage and Cinema report dated June 11, 2024 said the show had welcomed more than two million visitors in thirteen years. Its success had turned the McKittrick Hotel into a multi-venue destination with the Manderley bar, the Club Car theater and the rooftop restaurant Gallow Green.

    Source: stageandcinema.com

  9. 2026

    March

    Twilo's DJs return for a two-night reunion at the club's original West 27th Street address

    Twilo closed in May 2001. Twenty-five years later, a two-night reunion went back to the club's original address on West 27th Street and reunited John Digweed and Danny Tenaglia, two DJs tied to the club's golden era who were among the last to play the room before it shut. Attendees reportedly came from other states and countries, and phones were politely discouraged.

    Source: electronicgroove.com

Further reading

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