Huge disappointment
I've stayed in many different hotels in New York and this was by far the worst experience. I booked the hotel a few months in advance, the price wasn't a bargain but I expected something similar to the other places I stayed in for the same price range.
We arrived after 24 hours of travelling over a few time zones to hear the booked room is not available and another room will be given. We're not fussy and accepted the room just to find it smelling of stale smoke. Not just a faint smell, a sinus wrecking asthma inducing disgusting smell. This is off course not the hotel's fault as they have a no smoking policy but either they did not check the room before they gave it out, the ventilation is sucking up smoke from somewhere or the one checking the cleanliness of the room is a chain smoker himself. We asked for another room which they provided and was asked to "check out" the next day so that they can then change our rooms to another one once again. We arranged for a 10am check out, packed and left our luggage in the lobby and came back at 2pm to freshen up just to find they do not have a room for us.We had to wait a few hours. I paid for 4 nights and by the 2nd day we still did not have a room. After asking the front desk to correct this they came up with excuses, basically blaming me for the issue. At this point I decided to cancel the reservation and only then did a room all of a sudden become available.
The hotel is dated, the rooms are nothing special, the aircon in the room really needs to be updated. Internet is more than $20 per day and it's not even great speed. The gym's aircon did not work and the overall feeling was as if was a huge impersonal hotel who thrive on groups and therefore do not really care about the individual traveller's satisfaction. It reminded me of the Waldorf's ugly stepsister. 
This hotel has to shape up. It might be in NY and therefore will always have visitors but it won't see me again.