The Standard High Line

André Balazs’s line of Standard hotels took its time getting to New York. Now it seems they were waiting for something big, and this is it — for a group that’s made its name with clever renovations, a ground-up new build is a major undertaking.

This Standard hotel looks more or less like a slightly bent UN building on stilts, straddling the High Line, the elevated former railway that’s been turned into lower Manhattan’s new green paradise. Even the interiors feel a bit utopian, decked out in a retro-future style that pays homage to Scandinavian mid-century modernism — a welcome departure from the faux-Romantic grittiness that seems to prevail in the Meatpacking District.

Bedrooms are compact, this being Manhattan, but they’re made bigger by clever planning and expansive views — New Jersey, in particular, looks good from this angle. The bathrooms are raising eyebrows for their transparent lack of privacy, but this place is for lovers, not room-sharing businessmen or pairs of traveling missionaries.