Twilo Came Back for One Weekend and Nobody Wanted to Leave
Twenty-five years after the Giuliani administration forced it to close, Twilo opened its doors for one weekend and New York's nightlife community turned up as if no time had passed at all. The hardest ticket in the city. Danny Tenaglia back on the decks. A dancefloor full of parents who had called in every favour to be there, and young people standing at the edges trying to understand what they were witnessing. This is what it felt like to be inside.
By Leila Antakly
Getting the ticket felt like finding a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's factory. Literally. Both nights sold out the moment they went on sale, and by the time Saturday, March 7th arrived, what was circulating on the secondary market cost a fortune and felt worth every cent. Twilo was back. One weekend. Twenty-five years after its doors closed for the last time.
The club opened in the mid 90s becoming one of the most revered rooms in the history of nightlife. All-night sets from Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, Sasha and John Digweed. The Progressive House sound that Twilo helped define, murky, percussively dense, folding into Garage and Tribal — filled the room like a reclaimed inheritance.
The crowd is unlike anything currently playing in New York's club scene, and that is entirely the point.
A woman nearby details the babysitter that made her attendance possible. A bespectacled father in his late 40’s — who grew up in uptown Manhattan and used to jet down to Chelsea for these nights — explains that he called his mother-in-law and told her she needed to come because his wife was away and he was not missing this for anything. There are parents everywhere, visibly ecstatic, catching each other's eyes across the floor with the shared recognition of people who once shared something significant and have been carrying the memory of it ever since. There are groups celebrating reunions. And then there are the Vogue ballroom dancers — fluid, committed, commanding — and, nearby, a handful of younger people standing very still, phones lowered for once, just watching. Trying to absorb what a room feels like when three thousand people have given themselves over to it completely.
"I kept wanting to take a break but the music was just too good to leave the dancefloor."
That feeling, my own, is the whole review, really. Tenaglia played hit after hit, and the cumulative effect was of a time machine — not nostalgia in the passive, sentimental sense, but the active, physical sensation of being returned to a version of yourself that danced without thinking about it. I danced more on Saturday than I have in years.
The space itself carries its own history. After Twilo closed it became home to Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, the immersive theatrical production that turned the building's maze-like architecture into its own kind of legend. That architecture is still here: disorienting, labyrinthine, easy to get lost in. Chelsea these days is one of the ritziest neighbourhoods in the city, blue-chip galleries, The Whitney, The Shed and even Blackrock— a world away from the raw, slightly dangerous energy of the late nineties block that housed both Twilo and, next door, The Tunnel.
It did get very crowded, genuinely difficult to move from one end of the club to the other — and the drinks were expensive enough to be a small grievance. Some of the people I spoke to had attended both nights; I made Saturday, where Tenaglia played from 8pm to closing, though I didn't quite make it to the end. I danced more than enough.
The organisers are already looking at making this a series. When something sells out this fast and generates this much feeling, the logical response is to do it again. Junior Vasquez — the other defining face of the original Twilo, conspicuous by his absence this weekend given the current vogue of ballroom house — casts the largest shadow over what a future edition might hold. Yes please.
There is an enormous appetite in this city for a room that asks you to be present, to dance, to smile at strangers, to leave your phone in your pocket and give yourself over to the music. Twilo, even for one weekend, made that argument in the most convincing way possible: by filling the room with people who hadn't forgotten what it felt like, and a new generation beginning to understand what they've been missing.
Twilo's one-weekend reunion took place on 6–7 March 2026 at its original Chelsea location. Discover more artists and cultural moments chosen for how they inspire, not just their visibility, at Antakly Projects.
