Some great things - unforgivable neglect of basics
Good things
- Great location 
- Big rooms
- Lots of light and stuff to see in upper rooms (see photo)
- Staff pleasant (though with the usual expectation that even a non-service should be tipped. Not blaming the hotel; that's New York in general)
- Cheap (for New York)
- Quiet (my room was adjacent to the lifts, and this wasn't a problem)
Bad things
- Deep down filth. See photos. If the space under the bed had been cleaned once in the last year I'd be surprised. I only checked because my eyes were streaming. It really was disgusting.
- Rip off broadband. 10 bucks a day for "high speed" internet. I tested it: sub-0.5 megs at one point, 1.2 megs max. "Help desk", based in Seattle, said "oh, I can see lots of people are using it, like that was just something I just had to deal with
- Not enough lifts. See other reviewers' comments.
- Tired decor, scuffed furniture 
- If you were on the top floor, you'd have to travel 17 floors to get ice (in THOSE lifts!)
I'm fine with the lift situation, helpfully pointed out by other reviewers before I booked. That won't change - it would be a multi-million dollar building project, and that's not going to happen. I'm not fine with the broadband shame. If you're going to use broadband costing cents-per-day at wholesale as an opportunity to sting guests, that's bad enough. But when it's advertised as high-speed but isn't good enough to stream even a low-def video - that's not acceptable. Fix it.
The deep down dirt: I notice that the general manager has been good about coming on tripadvisor to explain things. But god knows what he's going to say about the filthy carpets. Because there can be absolutely no excuse. So don't bother explaining it. Just fix it for future guests.