Hotel Review: The Standard in New York City | nytimes.com

It’s hard to think of a hotel that has generated as much buzz as the Standard. The owner, André Balazs (who runs sister hotels in Los Angeles and Miami Beach), hired Polshek Partnership Architects to create a concrete and glass slab on stilts, an architectural tour de force that has fascinated motorists along the West Side of Manhattan. But what of the interiors? The public spaces — including a restaurant and beer garden at ground level and bars and a lounge on the top two floors of the hotel — won’t open until summer. And so the crowd, which will most likely be young and chic, has yet to descend. No matter. The rooms, it turns out, have a lot to recommend them. And during the soft opening (with about two-thirds of the 337 rooms in service), $195 covers not just accommodations but breakfast for two, with a view.