PS37, the popular event space in Durham's Central Park district, will close at the end of 2025.
Though it's popularly known as a hot spot for dance parties, it didn't start off that way. Griffin Wade opened PS37 in 2019 as a maker space with Tom Rau and Chance Griffin. In 2022 Lauren Hussey became a partner. Wade is a cabinet maker by day, and he used part of the space as a workshop. He and Hussey also rented the space out to painters, glass workers, ceramicists and other creatives in the Durham community.
As the pandemic hit, business started to slow down. In 2021, in order to give people a space to gather, they started hosting outdoor events at the venue. These events were doing well, and Wade and Hussey figured it was a better idea to continue down that road rather than to try to re-open as a maker space.
"We very slowly cleared out the inside of the warehouse space and started having events inside," Wade said. "We never really intended to be an event space, it just became that organically. It felt like we were figuring out how to fly the plane while it was in the air."
Wade says that this unintentional swerve is part of why they're closing the doors.
"Along the way, we were slowly building this thing up without any roots or foundation under it to help support the thing," he said. "The space is really cool and funky, but the floors are uneven, and there's no air conditioning. It has all of these weird little quirks, and those things really made it difficult for us to get our legs under us and to operate at the level that we wanted to operate at."
Wade says that maintaining a business with so many challenges is not something the co-owners could do forever. In 2019 when PS37 opened, they signed a three year lease, but have mostly been going month-to-month since then.
Hussey is a residential real estate agent by day, so she knew that was a major red flag. "How can we invest in a space knowing that the landlord could kick us out in 30 days?" she said.
Over the past several years PS37 emerged as a popular spot for DJ collectives like The Conjure, No Visa, and Party Illegal. The space was also an important part of the two festivals that Sylvan Esso threw in Durham in 2022 and 2024. Wade says that the support of Sylvan Esso and their label, Psychic Hotline, was integral to their success and played a major part in putting them on the map as a hidden gem.
What comes next for Wade and Hussey isn't clear yet, but they don't want to go too far.
"We're pushing 40 now, and the things that we want for ourselves, personally and professionally, are different from when PS37 opened," he said. "We definitely want to continue being in the community-centered venue and bar space in Durham, but what we do next will not be PS37. PS37 will only ever exist as this funky little thing that happened."
PS37 will remain open until January 1, 2026. November and December are notoriously the slowest months for music and event spaces, but Wade says they intend to keep the flame alive through the venue's final months.
"Closing on New Year's Day puts a nice exclamation point on things," he said. "Our goal is to book as many of our favorite DJs and performers as we can until then."
Keep an eye on PS37's website to learn about these events as they come together.
