Ants in the bed, appalling customer service
I will start with the key takeaway of my experience at the Park 79: We had dozens of ants in our room (on the bed, in the bed, on the furniture, crawling on our bags...) and were treated with absolute disrespect and a lack of quality customer service. I strongly recommend that you do not book a room at the Park 79. 
We selected the Park 79 based on its location in the Upper West Side. The rate for a standard room with one double bed was $670 for two nights, in spite of a promotion that advertised a much lower rate. NY is expensive, but through this experience, we found that there are much better hotels with similar rates. (We moved to The French Quarters in Midtown for less than we were paying at Park 79, which was terrific and I highly recommend.)
Upon arrival, we met Robert, the ill-mannered front desk attendant. When we checked into our room (brings new meaning to the term "small" - the dimensions could not have been much bigger than 8' x 8'), all seemed fine. Dingy, cramped and lifeless, but not unlivable. It was on the second day of our stay that we returned to our room to find ants on the bed (see attached photo). There were a dozen ants crawling on the duvet cover, and we spotted at least a dozen more crawling on nearby furniture and our luggage. When we lifted up the corner of the duvet to find 4 ants in that corner alone, we immediately left the room.
Robert and his female colleague were insulting and disrespectful from the start. We were offered another room, which they positioned as an upgrade ("It has two beds!"), and scoffed at when we told them we'd be leaving immediately and requested a refund for the second night. The female colleague snickered as Robert belittled us, the customers! Incredible. The lack of customer service was truly offensive. 
We returned to our room to retrieve our luggage and there were two hotel employees inside: a woman from housekeeping who was brushing the ants onto the floor, and a man with a chemical-grade tank of poison to fumigate the room. Clearly, this is not the first time the Park 79 has had an issue with pests. And, it was obvious that the next person sleeping in that room might not have ants to deal with, though they'd be breathing in the toxins from hours before. 
The details included above are to illustrate what an exceptionally awful experience this was. Bottom line: do not stay here.