The Standard, High Line, formerly The Standard, is an 18-story luxury
boutique hotel
Boutique hotels are small-capacity Hotel, hotels that provide more personalized service than typical hotels. They typically have fewer than a hundred rooms, and are considered more "trendy" and "intimate", often due to their location in urban ar ...
located at 848
Washington Street between
West 13th and
Little West 12th Streets in the
Meatpacking District of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. It stands above street level, above the
High Line, a former elevated railroad track reconstructed into a
linear park. The hotel, which has 338 guest rooms, was designed by the architects
Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership) and was completed in 2009. ''Architype Review'', an online architecture publication, heralded the hotel as being "straightforward,
ndthoughtfully conceived,
omethingthat is all too rare in the City today."
History
Hotelier
André Balazs commissioned the building of the Standard. Although he owns a chain of hotels, this was the first he has actually built from the ground up. The hotel is located within the
Meatpacking District. Most of the area is occupied by two-story 19th and 20th century manufacturing lofts and industrial buildings which were once predominantly occupied by meat packers and butchers, but which now house restaurants, boutiques and high-end retailers. The clients and architects wanted the hotel to "reflect the historic feel of the neighborhood."
Josephine Minutillo, a critic for ''
Architectural Record
''Architectural Record'' is a US-based monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design. Its editor in chief is Josephine Minutillo. ''The Record'', as it is sometimes colloquially referred to, is widely-recognized as an important ...
'' noted, "the Standard is sleek and gritty at the same time, echoing its Meatpacking District neighborhood, where high-end fashion showrooms and pricey art galleries have supplanted bloody butcher shops and no-frills warehouses."
Design

The hotel is raised above street level on
pilotis, five massive sculptural piers, which hoist the building thirty feet over the park below. On the east side of the structure "
single, sloped concrete pier, along which a tantalizing set of fire stairs runs, supports the building by the hotel entrance."
The elevation of this structure is one clear distinction from the orthogonal street grid of Manhattan. Another was hinging the two concrete slabs which make up the structure. The hinge technique was not only a stylistic choice but also a functional one. Because of the angle of the two slabs all 338 guest rooms have unobstructed views of Manhattan: the New York City skyline, the
Hudson River or the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...
. Balazs explains the choice for hinging the slabs as such: "It
llowedus to squeeze in an extra room per floor, but more significantly, it provides a variety of view corridors while retaining as many views as possible of the Empire State Building."
The two prevalent materials used were concrete and glass. Two techniques of concrete pouring were used, pour-in-place and board form. The grid of the concrete serves as a frame for the water-white glass. The combination of the two materials creates a curtain wall for the façade of the structure. ''Architype Review'' notes that, "the juxtaposition of the building’s two materials…reflects the character of New York City: the gritty quality of the concrete contrasts with the refinement of the glass."
Architectural style
The style of the building is best related to the architectural vocabulary defined by
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...
. There are numerous references to his style of building, from the use of the pilotis, to the incorporation of public space, the use of a glass curtain wall façade, and the utilization of the rooftop, which now houses a bar called Le Bain. These features also speak to the principles of the
International Style
The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...
. Joseph Minutillo notes that some of the references to Corbusier were intentional, while others may not have been. For example, "an elevated pedestrian zone slicing through the building
sreminiscent of Le Corbusier’s multistreet-level designs for La Ville Radieuse."
Ground-level public plazas
One of the client's objectives was to "create a living room for the neighborhood,"
essentially to create a space where local members of the community as well as hotel guests could gather, and co-mingle. To this end, the street level of the Standard is an expansive outdoor plaza where guests of the hotel as well as the general public can sit and enjoy food from the Standard's restaurant, The Standard Grill, or beer from The Standards Biergarten. The outdoor plaza is situated partly underneath the Highline, so the preexisting railroad tracks lie overhead. Because of the exposed elevated railroad tracks and the client's stress on keeping with the historical feel of the Meatpacking District, numerous stylistic and design features were implemented. The façade of the entire restaurant is composed of reclaimed brick, very similar to the style of brick found in most other areas in the neighborhood. The architects also decided to hang metal canopies and use steel frame windows; these two architectural forms are commonly seen at meatpacking plants and other warehouses in this area. These stylistic choices allow this newly constructed building to keep with the historical feel of the Meatpacking District.
Elevator incident
On May 12, 2014, video footage was broadcast by the
TMZ television program of
Solange Knowles, sister of
Beyoncé
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. With a career spanning over three decades, she has established herself as one of the most Cultural impact of Beyoncé, ...
, physically assaulting her brother-in-law, hip-hop mogul
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American Rapping, rapper, businessman, and record executive. Rooted in East Coast hip-hop, he was named Billboard and Vibe's 50 Greatest Rappers of All Time, the ...
in an elevator in the hotel. The video spread quickly across the Internet and became an
Internet meme
An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Standard High Line, The
Hotels in Manhattan
Meatpacking District, Manhattan
Hotel buildings completed in 2009
Hotels established in 2009
2009 establishments in New York City