heed the warnings, do not stay here
i stayed here recently, having read all the dire reviews, but i'm tenacious, needed somewhere cheap and very short notice so didn't feel like i had much choice. but i think any hostel or b&b would be preferable. the other reviews have it pretty much covered - in the single rooms, if you're taller than 5'6" you won't be able to straighten up in bed, cockroaches, bed bugs, overflowing toilets, walls that don't quite reach the ceiling (the rooms are partitions more than rooms). the man in the room next to me apparently came to New York to sleep and snore for 24 hours a day. Imagine a cross between a heavy smoker's cough and someone being murdered and you get a sense of what he sounded like. During the post-Sandy blackout he left his door open. I had the misfortune of shining a torch in there where he lay, totally naked except for a breathing mask, lesions all over his body. I genuinely thought he was dead (this was the first time, night or day, he'd been at all quiet) until he jerked into life and motioned angrily for me to turn the torch off. Needless to say, the hotel management showed no concern and did nothing when I complained about the clearly very ill, openly naked, old man. when i asked for a candle to see the way to my room the man at the desk replied "i'm sorry, i only have four." When I checked out three days early they tried claiming it was actually four days late and attempted to charge me extra, despite the power still being out and them having no records to hand and not having checked any paperwork - they made this up on the spot.
If you're wavering, considering roughing it out, please please don't.