Impresario André Balazs has set necks craning and tongues wagging with his structurally brazen, Polshek-designed tower over the High Line. That Balazs has transformed this high-visibility site into public accessibility—with a sprawling street-level plaza and elevated public spaces designed to connect directly to the High Line—makes the Standard all the more noteworthy. Julie V. Iovine takes in the view.
 COURTESY cooper square
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New York–based architect Carlos Zapata and famed Italian designer Antonio Citterio have created the latest addition to the fast-transforming edges of Astor Place. By incorporating existing tenements into the tower’s base and layering public and private spaces, hotelier Klaus Ortlieb extends a tradition of suitably incongruous East Village aesthetics. Alan G. Brake checks in.
 aaron seward
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Because a quirk in the 1961 zoning code treats hotels the same way it does factories, some hoteliers are plumping pillows where metalworkers once stamped tin. As demand drives new transient hotels in dwindling manufacturing districts—eight are under way blocks from the Gowanus Canal—job-retention advocates are crying foul. Matt Chaban investigates.