André explains the world to Julie and the crowd. (All photos Matt Chaban)

Last Thursday, AN hosted the kick-off event for Meatpacking District Design ‘09, a conversation between executive editor Julie V. Iovine and hotelier André Balazs at his latest creation, the Polshek Partnership-designed Standard, New York (which Julie wrote about back in February). If you couldn’t make it, though, no sweat. For your vicarious pleasure, we’ve posted a highlight video, plus the full talk, both in video and audio formats–here at AN we’re platform agnostic–plus a slew of photos of the party, the swanky new digs, and the now-in-bloom High Line. (more…)