Why Is The Standard Still So Sexy?
When The Standard, High Line debuted in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district in 2009, it was branded like a luxe and horny ode to the by-the-hour hotels that once dotted the neighborhood — a place where exhibitionism was accepted, even encouraged, by the brand’s PR. Guests were invited to submit erotic photos to a hotel blog titled: CUM ON OVER, and street peepers were invited to gaze through floor-to-ceiling windows at explicit in-room action from the High Line park below. Fast forward fifteen years, and one pandemic later, and the Standard has tapered back its salacious overtones. Explicit directives to strip down have been replaced with “Ring Your Rep” placards, which implore guests to dial Washington to demand change, and yesteryear’s kinky content has been subsumed by innocuous cultural coverage of the hotel’s restaurants and weekly events. Still, The Standard is anything but. With architecture designed with titillation in mind, and club nights with names like “On Top,” the hotel all but guarantees an adventure.
The Standard’s first hip-yet-affordable Hollywood Hotel was founded in 1999 by the infamous hotelier André Balaz, whose other hits include The Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles, and The Mercer, in New York. With hard partying celebrity investors like Leonardo Dicaprio, the Hollywood Hotel, which included quirky perks like a DJ booth at the front desk, was a place to be seen or disappear or both. As additional properties sprang up in cities like New York and Miami, the hotels earned a reputation for being both laid back and boisterous, no frills and high fashion. In other words: staying at one of the Standard’s outposts meant you could construct your own fantasy getaway, and that’s just how Balaz wanted it. For the hospitality legend, luxury is synonymous with being left to your own devices, and while not as raucous as Hollywood haunts like the Chateau, The Standard, High Line, with its dueling penthouse nightclubs, is the kind of place where almost anything goes.
I’d been showing face at The Standard, High Line since 2015, hosting debaucherous bottle-service parties at Le Bain and doing laps around Boom’s circular bar during Met Gala afters. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I found myself in one of the hotel’s mid-century-inspired rooms. It was late fall, and my new friend Liara Roux had rented a two bedroom suite to celebrate the launch of her memoir, The Whore of New York. What began as a cocktail hour for friends, journos and fellow sex workers quickly devolved into a professional flogging performance, and later, a full blown sex party. This wasn’t my scene, yet the night felt like a natural progression for an evening at one of Manhattan’s most notoriously horny hotels. Why else would the suite have a shower that big?
Of course, I had certain expectations when I checked in for a mid-summer staycation on a recent Tuesday. The lobby had been quiet, but when I returned an hour later, convinced that my story would suffer if I didn’t upgrade to a suite facing the Hudson, there was a small crowd at the front desks. For the first time, I realized that this hotel wasn’t just a hangout for hot party people, a fact I’d continuously have to remind myself of during my stay. For tourists and freshmen alike, The Standard is an entrypoint to New York nightlife. Bridge and tunnel commuters mingle with Manhattan socialites; businessmen sleep here, as do tourists with a taste for art, fashion, and cultural cachet, and the Standard, with its rentable conference rooms and rooftop nightclub, caters to them all. When I finally made it to my sixth floor suite facing out onto the glittering river, I decided it was my mission to live as if I were on a raucous business trip: party, sleep, work, repeat.
When I arrived at Le Bain for Susanne Bartsch’s “On Top,” the 72-year-old Swiss-American entrepreneur and OG club kid best known for her outrageous looks and epic parties greeted myself and photographer Luisa Opalesky on the rooftop. Clad in a skin tight Barbarella-esque one piece, Bartsch had already palmed Luisa a stack of drink tickets before we had a chance to explain that we were covering the event that evening. A professional indeed. Downstairs at the bar, host Vera Lee Westwood, clad in subtle bondage, held court for her two middle-aged cousins, while club kids, bros, and circuit gays began to congregate on the dancefloor.
Every ex-party girl likes to think nightlife devolves when they stop hitting the clubs regularly, and I’m no exception. With most queer parties leaving the city for bigger venues in Brooklyn, I thought the scene at Le Bain would be more finance bro than femme queen — but that Tuesday, I was pleasantly surprised by how diverse the party felt. “It will always be my home,” Archie Goats, who's been hosting On Top since 2015, told me in the graffiti-bombed stairwell. “Susan’s party has been happening here for over a decade now. In terms of spaces for club kids, drag queens, and queers who are expressive with their outfits — it’s a dying thing in the city. You can just show up here and everyone celebrates it. You know you’re loved. That’s what this event has always been.”
Of course, not everyone was dressed to impress. Polo-wearing bros perched next to a kid rocking bare nipples and a Nike balaclava while cis girls in standard clubwear faded into the background. On the patio, a normie told me he heard Tuesdays were a fun queer night, but didn’t seem to know who Susan Bartsch was, while another mentioned that they preferred to “float” at roving silent raves. I smoked and sipped a too-strong vodka soda before making my way back to the dancefloor to try and get a quote from Miss Bartsch before the evening’s main event began. “I have to go do my job right now,” she yelled in my ear before jumping behind the DJ booth to welcome the crowd and introduce Fabiana Love’s lip synching performance. “It has been 13 years,” Bartsch bellowed into a microphone. “Now let’s par-tay.”
The next morning while nursing my hangover in a soaker tub overlooking Little Island, I thought about the jacuzzi in the club twelve floors above me. I’d nearly passed out on a bottle service couch when I first moved to the city, but I’d never stripped down for the hot tub. To do so is both a rite of passage and a clout-killer, best described by a 2020 meme that said something like: “Whoever’s been in the pool at Le Bain is immune to COVID.” But last night, Fabiana put the tub back in business. Half submerged in a cheetah print bikini, lip synching for her life, she whipped off her red wig to reveal tinsel underneath. A smirk crossed her face as she dipped the gold tendrils into chlorinated suds, whipping her head back to spray the jubilant crowd around her — dirty water be damned.
It was early evening when I finally finished work, but before I stepped out to hit Sephora and Little Island, I thought to call downstairs for a room refresh. I hit the housekeeping button, or so I thought, and a muffled voice came on the line. Would it be possible to have someone clean my room while I step out for an hour, I asked. “This is Washington, ma’am,” a gruff man responded. “I don’t know how this happened.”
I quickly hung up, my face red and grinning. I, a Canadian, had accidentally just “Rung my Rep” to ask for a change of sheets. Perhaps partying and politics don’t mix.
When I made my way back to the roof-deck at Le Bain for a sunset cocktail that evening, I couldn’t help but notice all the couples that had cozied up around me. A balding tourist downed wine with his sexy girlfriend while baby lesbians sipped beers and slipped each other tongue in the corner. Across the patio, a man bouncing his head along with the disco DJ had just lit a stogie. I thought about hotel lore, like the time Solange allegedly confronted Jay Z about cheating on Beyoncé in a video taken in one of the Standard’s elevators, and the Madonna pride event at Boom that was so packed everyone had to pee in bottles. Whether or not either of those stories is true is irrelevant. After all, hotels, like nightlife, are all about creating a fantasy.
Later that evening, I ventured downstairs to watch the infamous model and door girl Connie Fleming sift through a long line of thirsty club goers. Luisa snapped photos while Fleming, unfazed, worked her magic reading faces and flexing on would-be trouble makers before deciding whether or not to let them up to Le Bain. As I watched her neg a girl in sandals about their no open toe policy before letting her in, I remembered that doing face at the door wasn’t just about curating the party, but also making the guests that do get in feel special. You made it past the door queen of New York, now what are you going to do when no one’s watching?
We let Luisa run wild at the Standard Highline for 48 hours. Here's what she came back with.
