Yet One More Stay at a Fine Hotel (I Have Stayed at this Hotel Many Times in the Past 28 Months)!
This is probably my sixth or seventh review of this hotel since I started staying here in September of 2010. Since that time, I have stayed at this property well over 125 days, in over 15 separate reservations/stays (which would theoretically qualify me to write 15 separate TripAdvisor reviews for this hotel, but that would be waaay to much work, and in any case, TA allows only one review per 90 days for any hotel. ....), with a number of the stays being 10 days in length, or longer.
Interestingly, while I am a Platinum Elite member of the IHG/Holiday Inn Priority Club and have earned tons of Priority Club points over the past 2.5 years, all of my points, until very recently, have been earned solely via stays at this hotel (i.e., the Holiday Inn SoHo); I finally broke my Holiday Inn SoHo-only streak recently by staying just one night earlier this month (Nov. 2012) at a Holiday Inn Express in Las Vegas, NV; that is the only other IHG or Holiday Inn property at which I have stayed in over 14 years.
I am writing this current review in late November 2012, while in the middle of a rather long stay here at the hotel.
I like this hotel, and that is why I keep coming back to it; it is as simple as that. In fact, whenever I need to stay in lower Manhattan, and need to be anywhere near Tribeca, Chinatown, SoHo, LES (Lower East Side) or Greenwich Village, I choose only this hotel. In fact, the only other hotel in Manhattan in which I have spent any significant time in the past 12 years is the New Yorker Hotel in the Midtown West area, which is where I stay whenever I need to see clients in that area.
I have largely covered what I like about this hotel in my three or four previous TA reviews over the past 2.5 years, but here is a brief recap of the highlights:
-- with only a very few and rare exceptions scattered across the years, I find the staff, whether they be managers, front desk staff, housekeepers, or the bell staff, to be very helpful, attentive and responsive, and very often willing to go well beyond the basic definition of their duties to help to meet the needs of their guests. In fact, during my last lengthy stay here, in September, I noticed one front desk staffer, apparently a new staffer at the trainee level, who did not seem to be particularly skilled at treating guests and other people with respect, and I have noticed during my current visit that she is no longer working here as a staff member; it is reassuring to me to see that the hotel management pays attention to qualities such as care, attentiveness, helpfulness and responsivity (or lack thereof) in its staffers.
-- I consistently find the ground floor entry, the second floor lobby, the restaurant seating area, the hallways, and the rooms to be very clean, well-furnished, and very presentable.
-- While it is true that hotel rooms in hotels located in Manhattan, and particularly rooms in the under-$700 per night price range, are small compared to hotel rooms in many other parts of the USA (and that is simply due to the realities of very high real estate prices and very high property taxes here in NYC), I have consistently found that the rooms in this hotel, while still on the small side, are considerably larger than comparably-priced rooms in other nearby hotels in the same price range, and even considerably larger than comparably-priced rooms at the famed and storied New Yorker Hotel (also a very good hotel), which is located in the Midtown West area of Manhattan.
-- The location here is great: While the hotel itself is located in lower SoHo, it is mere yards from Chinatown, Little Italy, NoLita, the Lower East Side (LES), and TriBeCa, and just a short walk from lower Greenwich Village, Washington Square and Union Square. (For those who use NYC's excellent subway system, there are subway stops, all of them on Canal St., for over a dozen different lines located within a short distance of the hotel; I tend not to use subways myself, and rather, I either walk or take a taxicab. ...)
-- Whenever I have encountered small problems during my stays here, the staff and management have been very responsive in remediating the problems as quickly as possible. As a case in point, I always rent a refrigerator during each of my stays here, and when I checked in here for this current stay about 12 days ago, I was advised by hotel staffers that, while they were well aware that I always prefer to rent a refrigerator for my room during my stays, there were currently no refrigerators available for me, simply because the hotel was jam-packed with FEMA employees and other federal employees who were working in NYC post-Megstorm Sandy, and that many of these long-term guests had asked for refrigerators. As a result of this, it was explained to me, there were simply no rental refrigerators available at the moment. However, several managers, including the Front Desk director, and the Housekeeping director, assured me personally that they would do everything possible to find me a fridge as soon as possible, and all the more so because I am a frequent guest of the hotel and also because I am a Priority Club Elite member. The bottom line for ths story is that by 2 PM the next day, they had delivered a rental refrigerator to my room. 
-- I have consistently found management and staff to be helpful in other ways as well. As just one case in point, I notified the hotel in advance of my arrival (about 12 days ago) for my current stay that I was hoping to get early check-in, as I anticipated arriving at the hotel by around 1 PM or 1:30 PM, which is considerably earlier than the standard hotel check-in time of 3 PM (interestingly, I recently stayed in a hotel elsewhere in NYC where the posted standard check-in time was 4 PM!). The front office/desk manager quickly responded, assuring me that they would likely be able to accommodate my request for an early check-in when I arrived at the hotel. Well, as luck would have it on the day that I was due to arrive here, I checked out of my midtown hotel (where I had spent the previous four days) a bit early, and my taxi ride to lower SoHo was unusually quick, and thus I arrived at the hotel at just after noontime, well over an hour earlier than I had expected. Nonetheless, when I presented myself at the front desk for check-in, I was assured that they had a room waiting for me, and, within two minutes, I was in my room and unpacking for a lengthy stay!
And now, simply because I have spent so much time at this hotel over the past 2.25 years, I would like to take a few moments and respond to some rather puzzling and even bizarre comments for this hotel that I have noticed in TA reviews for this hotel over the past few months:
"No fridges in rooms" This is true, but the reviewer missed some points. As is true with most hotel rooms in NYC in the sub-$600 price range, the rooms do not have refrigerators, but rental refrigerators are easily available; all you need to do is ask the front desk for a rental fridge. 
"You must pay for Internet" This is not true. Any hotel guest (and also any of their own guests/visitors as well) using a WiFi-equipped device is able to use the hotel's WiFi Internet service for free, and the front desk supplies the WiFi password to registered guests at the time of check-in. However, it is true that many other Manhattan hotels in this price range, and even in the $600-plus price range, DO charge a daily fee for high-speed WiFi Internet access; I recently stayed at a midtown Manhattan hotel where I (gladly) paid $10 per day for high-speed WiFi access! So, to this day, I have been unable to figure out what these past TA reviewers were whining about! 
"You must pay to use the Internet-equipped and printer-equipped Windows desktop PCs and printers in the lobby" -- This is true, and I have personally used these printer-equipped desktop PCs a few times myself, at times when I have needed to print tickets or boarding passes. I feel that the per-minute pricing rate (well, the per-10-minute rate, as I recall. ...) for these Windows PCs is entirely reasonable, and I will point out that every other hotel in the NYC area in which I have ever stayed, when they have provided Internet-equipped and printer-equipped PCs in lobby, has charged the same per-minute rate, or higher. In fact, I have paid the same (or higher) per-minute rate to use hotel-provided desktop PC even in hotels located in Kansas City, and in Denver, and in Florida. ... So, exactly WHAT is it that these TA reviwers were whining about? I personally suspect that these particular reviewers had simply not stayed at any other hotels in the US at any time over the past 12 years. ...
"Curtains cover the below-window AC/Heat Unit" -- Not true. The windows in the rooms are not provided with curtains or drapes, but rather with heavy blackout-type drape-quality shades which fit inside the window casement and which may be raised or lowered at will. Even at their lowest position, the heavy drape/shade does not leave the window casement/frame, and thus is not able to cover the below-window AC/heating unit in any way.
"Tiny rooms" Not really true at all in comparison with other Manhattan hotel rooms in the under-$600 per night price range; see my rather exhaustive personal observations on this matter about 10 paragraphs above this one!
Finally, in closing, I will offer ONE BIG TIP that applies not only to stays at this hotel, but at any hotel: This is a guideline that I have carefully formulated after literally hundreds of stays in hotels across the USA over the past 12 years, and after having read numerous reviews from both happy guests and unhappy guests at various hotels on TA and on other review websites. If you are planning to stay at a hotel, and if you want to get the best rooms, to have access to the best available options, and get the best service when you arrive, make your own reservations with the hotel using the hotel's own website, or by calling the hotel directly by phone, and avoid using any of the numerous third-party "discounted" websites that promise to find you a lower room rate.
Well, I must close my review now, because it is is noontime, and I must leave the warmth of my hotel room to go find an inexpensive lunch at one of the hundreds of fine inexpensive eateries located within a 5-block radius of this hotel! (If you must know, I will be walking about 8 blocks down Grand St. to a traditional Chinese restaurant ("traditional" meaning that 99% of their customers are Chinese, and not tourists) at 300 Grand St., called Big Hing Wong, which serves amazing-tasting but inexpensive food, and makes all of their own sauces and dips, and which uses very little MSG in their dishes.)