Convenient location, decent value, maintenance problems
Location is very convenient -- 1-1/2 blocks from Kenmore T station. Fantastic restaurant less than 1 block away called Eastern Standard, convenience store across the street which is open late. Rooms have a mini-fridge and microwave, but no cups, plates, or utensils, and no coffee maker, which is a big minus. 
The building was designed by Stanford White and has a lot of charm; it must have originally been apartments, since room configurations within each class are very different. We reserved a double Queen suite (2 queen beds). We were there in December and it was cold -- 30s and 40s, down into the 20s at night. The heat wasn't working in the first room they gave us, on the 4th floor. The maintenance person, who came up right away, said it might be a day or two before it was fixed and offered us a space heater in the interim! We asked to be moved, and were given Room 627 -- two bedrooms, each with a Queen bed, plus a living room and large, very nice bathroom. It was more like an apartment than a hotel room. Although it was very clean, the furniture is old and beat-up, there's no shelf/counter space in the bathroom, the TVs are old-fashioned, the carpet is stained, and in the living room there was a small, uncomfortable couch plus a couple of straight-backed chairs -- no comfortable seating. Overall, the furnishings are spartan.
On our final night, we got in about 11:00pm and discovered that the heat wasn't working. We called the front desk and were told that the maintenance staff was gone for the night, and there was nothing to be done till morning. They had ONE small space heater available. They did offer to move us to another room, but since we were leaving the next morning it seemed like too much trouble to pack up and move for just one night, especially since it was already so late. Outside temp was 27 degrees, so we spent a very cold night. 
The night auditor who came up to look at the thermostat didn't offer to discount the rate, but I requested it and was told they'd do something. When we checked out the next morning, they gave us a 50% discount on our final night. It would have been more appropriate to comp it 100%. The desk staff told us that ALL of the rooms at our end of that hallway had lost heat the previous night. 
Overall, I'm not sure I'd stay here again -- it's a lovely building in a great location, but it's very shabby and needs a good deal of sprucing up. And they REALLY need to fix their climate control issues. The front desk is staffed 24 hours a day; all of the staff are very nice, but are also very young and inexperienced (I think they're students at the nearby Boston University), and they have no authority, or ability to deal with emergencies such as the heat not working. The hotel clearly has serious facility management problems.
The included continental breakfast seems OK if you don't have to be gluten-free as I do -- lots of simple carbs; other than that they had the usual selection of unripe melon, unripe bananas, apples, and non-nutritious commercial flavored/sweetened yogurt. I would have preferred to pay a lower room rate, and instead have a coffee maker in the room with no continental breakfast. The front desk staff told us that in the spring of 2013 the included breakfast will be eliminated, and the former karaoke bar off the lobby that they're now using as the breakfast room will become a full-service restaurant and bar, with limited room service available to guests.