stellar service, grimy room
I chose to stay at this hotel ostensibly because of the comments about friendly, helpful service and staff at this hotel -- and, to that extent, I was not disappointed. Staff members were very friendly, helpful, and pleasant. On that note, I would have given the Carlton Midway an "excellent" rating.
What pulls it down to "poor," however, was the state of my groundfloor room. Now, I didn't have any pretensions of expecting the Hilton or Hyatt. I was anticipating, as many of the reviews pointed out, "basic and clean." Basic and clean is fine. 
But grimy? And dank? And dark? That's not OK.
The carpet was filthy. I like to walk around barefoot, but my feet (and the shower, as a result) were black on the soles from walking on the carpet. Was this a smoking room, I wondered? I'm usually very sensitive to the smell of tobacco smoke, and did not detect it, so I have no idea why the floor was so dirty other than insufficient cleaning (and that raises the issue of insufficient cleaning elsewhere, too ... what a gross thought).
The room was dank. It smelled damp. The AC had a distinct odor that smelt like burning dust. The lighting was insufficient: even with all the lights on in my room it was so dark in one half of the (very tiny) room that a pair of black shoes placed on the floor were invisible. 
The dispenser soap/shampoo in the bathroom were just nasty: poor quality, awful smell. I went out and bought a cake of soap to overcome this (and would recommend that those who wish to stay at this hotel do likewise). 
The noise from the outside roadway was very loud and did interfere with sleep. I was surprised at this because noise is not usually an issue for me (I generally sleep well). The fact that it was an issue on this trip either speaks to the unusually loud volume of the traffic -- and noisy people talking loudly outside my door -- or that I was just plain uncomfortable in the room to begin with.
The free breakfast was reasonable for the inclusive price. As others have pointed out, it consists of coffee (not bad, but not good), bagels, fruit spreads, and microwaveable "Dunkin' Donut" breakfast sandwiches -- if one can stomach the latter (I can't). 
I deliberated over marking this review as "average"; I wanted to mark it as "very good" or even excellent (because of the outstanding service). But, overall, the state of the room was so disappointing and so awful that I just can't.