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Harlem's 'Hoodwinked Escape' Reopens With New Adventure Rooms After Fire

By Dartunorro Clark | February 8, 2017 4:28pm
 The lobby of Hoodwinked Escape, which had to undergo repairs after the fire.
The lobby of Hoodwinked Escape, which had to undergo repairs after the fire.
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DNAinfo/Dartunorro Clark

CENTRAL HARLEM — Those looking for a winter escape are in luck.

Hoodwinked Escape — which locks thrill-seekers into intricately decorated “escape rooms” and gives them 60 minutes to find a way out — recently reopened after a Dec. 11 fire in its basement forced it to close and caused thousands of dollars in damage.

Now the business is buzzing again with clients booking sessions after its Jan. 23 reopening, owner Michele Ware said.

“They couldn’t wait to come the first weekend,” she said, noting many of the clients are companies looking to do team-building exercises.

Ware said support from the community and crowd-funding helped her raise roughly $25,000 for repairs and restoration.

“The GoFundMe helped with the furniture and the trick items,” she said of the online fundraising campaign.

Ware founded Hoodwinked Escape in 2015 after learning about escape-room adventures while working in corporate finance and being involved in team-building activities with her co-workers.

Groups have to solve puzzles, find hidden doors and clues, and discover combination codes in order to get out.

She loved the concept so much she left her job to focus on her own venture.

The business had four escape rooms prior to the fire, but only two have reopened, with the other two currently under renovation and set to return sometime around Valentine’s Day with new themes.

Ware said it was always in the plans to revamp the rooms but that the fire delayed that. However, since she had to repair parts of the business anyway, it proved the perfect time to make the alterations.

She said the two new rooms — a mad scientist lab and a secret agent academy — will be “much more interactive” and “high-tech.”

“Now’s just the best time to make that happen,” Ware said.