NYC on a budget!
My fiance and I paid a flying visit to NYC and stayed 2 nights at Hotel 31. The room was cheap and had a shared bathroom, so our expectations were quite low... we wanted somewhere to sleep and nothing more. So we were pleased to be pleasantly surprised... the location was absolutely fantastic, within walking distance on the Empire State Building, Penn Station, Times Square... we also walked down to the 9/11 Memorial and the Staten Island ferry terminal, and also up to Central Park, but appreciate that this isn't everyone's idea of 'walking distance'! The room was on the small side and the window looked out onto a brick wall (essentially rendering the room windowless), but it was clean with a TV, phone and wash basin, and did exactly what we wanted it to do - gave us somewhere to sleep! There were two shared bathrooms near to our room, both were clean and we never had to queue. One was right next to our room and my fiance said that he woke a couple of times during the night due to people using the bathroom, but I slept right through. All in all, a great budget hotel which provides a fantastic base for exploring the city, but probably not for you if you like your hotels with a bit of luxury!