Hotel Alexander

I’m staying here right now. The location is great, but all the comments about the wifi are accurate. It’s so absolutely terrible, that it is useless. That’s a huge problem when it’s an extended stay hotel and your «home» while in town for work or school.

Zero stars if I could! Marketing manager «Juliana» employed a bait and switch tactic right from the very beginning before I even made the booking, mentioning that the studio queen rooms were available ($ 69 a night) for July. She requested me and my husband to fill out application forms with our personal info, credit card authorization info and proof intent to stay before she could move forward with the application, and that the itinerary wouldn’t be confirmed if she didn’t have the info.
I rushed and got her all the necessary info and copies of our ID and credit card in the quickest time possible and she took half a day to get back to me, saying that the $ 69/​night rooms were not available — only the $ 98/​night room and applied pressure tactics to get us to sign on 4 days earlier than we requested, otherwise we may not get it. I replied immediately, asking if she had the wrong customer in mind for the dates and why the $ 69 room were not available. It’s been almost a day now and still no response.
I am incredibly furious with Hotel Alexander’s horrendous customer service, lies and shoddy bait and switch tactics! I noted that they refused to give out phone numbers for booking service, it has to be done online only. No asking questions by phone.
Am also concerned about the safety and privacy of my information, that they’d dare request it and not respond to me. How do I know whether you’re not going to take my information and do something with it? I will continue to monitor this situation and report it to the BBB and Attorney General’s office if any misuse of my information occurs.
Future customers be warned! If a hotel treats you like this before you even set foot into its environs, doesn’t have a phone number that you can call to book and takes your payment info and goes silent on you — RUN FAR, FAR AWAY!!! This place is the sketchiest hotel ever.

I have lived in many apartments but Hotel Alexander is the first one from New York so I can’t really compare the quality of the apartment based on the price.
However, I do know that the front desk and the housekeeping (cleaning ladies) are really nice.
I have not noticed any bugs and insects contrary to other Unilocal reviews.
Beds/​Sheets are not comfortable and it is extremely noisy outside in the morning.

This is by far the WORST hotel you can ever stay at. If I can rate it no stars I would but I was forced to give it at least one. The staff here is awful. No one cares about anything or anyone and the manager Evan in the building never shows his face and stays in his office all day just answering emails.
When I first came to check in, I had 2 pieces of luggage that no one helped me with. The elevator is the size of 1 person and can only fit 2 people tops in the elevator. It couldn’t move any slower.
The Key cards to get into your room never work so if you are staying on a higher floor you have to go back down to get it reactivated. Every time you come back into the building you have to get your key card fixed to open your room. They will not get new key cards so it is your responsibility to remember to get it swiped on your way into the building.
The housekeeping staff are very nice but when they come to clean your room, they take your towels and do not replace them until hours later because they probably don’t have enough to replace them. What hotel does that?
The beds are as hard as a rock, they are awful. The showers don’t have curtains, they have a glass door that is only covered halfway out. Every time I shower the water goes everywhere on the bathroom floor.
You are only supplied with 5 hangers for the mini closet and for this being a long term stay hotel they should be supplying you with at least 10.
Every morning and night it is so noisy because everyone slams there door so you hear it all the time.
Overall, this hotel is absolutely terrible. The customer service is horrible and no one should ever stay at a place like this.
Please listen to this post or you will be sorry…

Don’t stay here if you enjoy using the internet. They «claim» to have Free Wi-​Fi High Speed Internet as stated on their website, but they do not. I talked to them about not having internet in my room multiple times and they refuse to fix it. Terrible management and staff. Only positive is the location.

I called this place home for four months. The price is fair for Manhattan and I thoroughly enjoyed its proximity to the 2 and 3 express trains. The front desk people are nice and they accept your packages in the mail thus goodbye trips to FedEx/​UPS offices! Housekeeping did a good job of cleaning my mess every week. Only complaint is that I had a room without a window and it got really stuffy some times.

I am currently staying here and I wouldn’t recommend it at all. It’s been such a hassle. I’ve had to change rooms multiple times with no help from any of the staff. If you are in a shared bathroom, there is no soup or hand towels in there. The front desk staff isn’t helpful at all. Wifi in the room is terrible. There is one small elevator that is so slow. Only good thing about this hotel is the location and the price. I would rather pay more to stay elsewhere.

The person working at the front desk told me to tell me cousin to, «shut the fuck up,» and then shortly after he started calling her a «bitch.» I continued to tell him to focus on me while I was trying to make the payment for my room, but he continued to yell and argue with my cousin who was simply letting him know that the way he was running the office was not professional and efficient.
I e-​mailed the 3 managers about the behavior, only one responded with a short e-​mail briefly saying sorry at the most. Very unprofessional. I have never ever heard of this kind of behavior, and the managers seemed to think that this kind of treatment was not short of professional. I am still in shock, I would never recommend this place and I feel completely disrespected.
As far as the room:
The radiator heater leaked twice in my room, leaving water damage everywhere, a moldy smell and ruining a lot of my clothes. NO A/​C.
TV: At most 4 channels, MTV, E!, Food Network, ESPN (i think), No news channels etc.
Internet: So slow, don’t bother doing much in the room. Instead, I would have to go to coffee shops for internet access.
Room: Extremely small, decent bed, window was in alley leaving very, very little light. I would wake up in the mornings to almost complete darkness. 4 hangers included in closet, which was so small it wasn’t even worth using.
The only way to get information about payments etc is e-​mailing the managers. The front desk workers can’t answer any questions about your reservation. Mangers took usually more than a couple days to respond to e-​mails.

I stayed here for 3 months while working in New York this past summer for less than $ 60 a night, which was cheaper than any apartment I could find in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
The room:
–Large, with good air conditioning
–A firm bed whose sheets and blankets were replaced weekly
–A working microwave and mini-​fridge
–No bathroom, but 3 shared bathrooms on the floor which were always clean
–Free wi-​fi, somewhat slow
The neighborhood:
–Relatively quiet
–Close to grocery stores, pharmacies, and other general services
–Less than 5 minutes from the 96^th street 1−2−3 subway station, which took me right to my office in Lower Manhattan
Overall, although basic, this hotel provided me with everything I needed for an extended stay in New York for a good price. I would not hesitate to stay there again or recommend it to others.

Good place for a crash pad. Right next to Riverside Park and less than two blocks from the 1−2−3 trains. The weekly maid service and free coffee makes me happy. Small rooms but they are clean with good wifi, and a great tv. The bathrooms are amazing!!! Affordable although not a steal. That doesn’t happen in NYC anyway though. They have managed to mix college students, foreigners, and business people in here… Which I can imagine as not being the easiest task.

Hotel Alexander posts daily on Craigslist. I filled out an application to rent a room for 3 months. They asked me to fill out an application which included permission for a credit history check, current employment, and past living arragements. After a week, several emails and phone calls they finally got back to me. They increased the price of the room drastically (bait and switch) and were very unprofessional. I dealt with both Brittany and Evan and would not recommend this place to anyone.

i stayed two nights at The Alexander while in NYC this Fall. The price was reasonable (just under $ 200 per night) for what you can find elsewhere in Manhattan. The room was very clean and the bathroom was immaculate. the location is within walking distance of several subway lines and Broadway where a million cabs will take you anywhere you need. Also, the area (Upper West Side, by Riverside) is pretty safe and the street it’s on is not too busy.
On the downside, the first night I saw my sleep interrupted by folks a couple of rooms away who were noisy and smoking a lot. I told the receptionist about it the next morning and they said you should report those cases to them b/​c it is a no-​smoking hotel. As for Wi-​Fi, I could never figure out the code I needed to enter to make it work, but maybe it was me or that the Wi-​Fi is only available in the lobby (many hotels do this).
I got a private bathroom, so I can’t speak for the shared bathroom option they offer, but overall, the experience was very positive and this is a highly recommendable option for affordable stays in the City.

I want to start of my saying that I realy, truly am not a princess. Well, not too much of one anyway. But this hotel made me cry when we got there. I don’t know. The gross pink walls and the 30 year old pink and green and blue hotel bedspread. (Why do hotels HAVE to have such gross bedspreads?) IAnd the shared bathroom and the dirty walls in the hallway. .. it just felt so depressing. But you know what? I got over it. The bathrooms were kept quite clean and I got used to that idea. The bedrooms could use a serious update though. The location rocked — a five minute walk to the 1−2−3 subway station.
Still, I wouldn’t go back. But if you want to save money, go for it. You really could do worse!

For the price in the City, it’s pretty nice. Well we stayed in the rooms where you share the bathroom, as well as traveling during off season so there was a discount on the rooms. I don’t remember exactly how much but definitely check the website for any updates.
The size of the room was pretty small, there was not much space after our two pcs. of luggage were on the floor, but then again we only needed a place to lay down after walking all day, not to hang out in a hotel on our trip.
Pros: –near the 96^th station right on broadway and 94^th
. –the bathroom was cleaned fairly often so it wasn’t ever dirty.

The cons: — the boiler broke during our stay so for two days there was only cold water… so that was definitely not ok, and there wasn’t a definitive answer on when it would be fixed. During this time it made the first floor smell like poopy… I felt bad for the workers that had to sit there all day.
Boyfriend said he would stay there again for the price, and location. We both felt pretty safe regardless of the hour.

For what it was, it wasn’t that bad. Let’s go through the positives and negatives:
Positives:
–Cheap accommodations compared to other hotels in the UWS
–Within a couple blocks of the ½/​3 subway stop
–Free Wi-​Fi in the downstairs lounge room
–Bathrooms are cleaned well every morning
–Good sized rooms and fairly quiet (Got a room with 2 double beds located in the far corner of the floor)
–Working TV with limited channels
Negatives:
–Shared bathrooms can be a bit of a pain (ex. urine on the toilet seat, both bathrooms being occupied on your floor, someone unleashing #2 hell)
–Only one slow moving elevator
–Can get noisy if you stay next to a guest who likes to slam their doors
–No ironing board (but you get check out a portable one at the front desk)
–Bathroom electrical outlets are hit or miss
If I needed to stay on the cheap again, I’d come here but I’ll opt for a room with a bathroom in it.

Based on previous reviews, I double and triple checked my reservations via telephone, e-​mail, etc. before my trip. All was good except for our first night where we got stuck w/​2 singles instead of our reserved double bed. No biggie.
PROS:
— PRICE ($ 95 vs $ 400 for a mid-​town 3 star hotel… no brainer)
— location (near subway express stop)
— cleanliness (every time I stepped out of my room, a maid was either vaccuuming or spraying something down)
— new sheets/​towels daily
— share bathrooms were rarely occupied
CONS:
— feels like a dorm room
— not the type of place you want to spend lots of time (you’re not in NYC for the hotels anyway)
— noisy radiator
— mandatory shower sandal use
Overall, a clean, cheap place to lay your head in between museums visits and late-​night eats. Not good for ppl who want fancy accomodations.

Excellent price (very inexpensive for the area) and basic accommodations (TV, dbl bed, etc.). I was expecting a hostile (based on the shared bathroom), but the place was clean and the rooms (and bed) were just fine. As a matter of fact, every time we left in the morning, a crack team of maids were busy cleaning everything from the rooms to the main lobby and elevators. Actually the main lobby was cleaned 5 – 6 times per day.
4 stars based on the price and how clean they keep the joint.

When I initially booked this room and saw the reviews, I was expecting something very basic with shared bathrooms that were kind of meh, a really uncomfortable bed, a TV with fuzzy reception and possibly asking to be buzzed in during the later hours of the evening. However, I didn’t care because why the hell would I stay in my room anyway while I’m here and besides, it’s a block away from the 1, 2 AND 3 subway lines — the 2 and 3 lines are express lines that’ll get you from the UWS to downtown pretty quickly.
I was wrong! Well, mostly anyway. The biggest surprise was that some rooms do have private bathrooms, and I was lucky enough to score one (PM me if you want more info on which room to request). Both the private and shared bathrooms have similar décor, which had modern-​looking gray tile on the walls, and were very clean. The TV (which I watched very little of) had very clear reception and had basic cable, and there’s no need to buzz the door to be let in late at night. The room itself was small, but it was very nicely decorated and even had recessed lighting. Free coffee is available in the mornings, and free wi-​fi is available in the lounge area. Computers with internet are available for a fee if you don’t have a laptop and/​or a fancy phone (like me). The staff was very friendly.
My only complaints were that the air conditioning was a bit focused to one area of the room which did not happen to be where the bed was, and the bed may as well have been a boxspring because it was that hard. There’s no Gideon’s Bible or room service — however there is a little display of coupons for various attractions downstairs, which proved useful for my trip to the Top of the Rock. The elevator is very slow and very tiny, but I just walked down the stairs instead and it was fine. Considering the low price and that it was far better than what I expected in the first place, the very few things I’m whining about is just that — nothing to seriously give a crap about.
On my next trip here (because there will be one), I’ll absolutely stay here, and I’d recommend it to everyone else.

If I could give no stars, I would. (Don’t people always say that?)
The last time I used this hotel for out of town guests, the experience was good, so I brought my patronage back for a second go round. Long story short, I was put on hold repeatedly and left on hold indefinitely, hung up on repeatedly, and given attitude by Abdul, the counter person. All this to simply confirm the policy on cancellations. The lack of professionalism and general fuck-​you attitude towards customers deserves no stars.

I really enjoyed my stay at the Alexander. My teenage daughter and I went to Manhattan to visit colleges, and take in some museums and musicals. Our goals were to have a very eclectic, native New Yorker– like experience on a strict budget, and this hotel, at less than 100 dollars a night for a room with two full comfy beds hit the target precisely.
The Hotel is a Upper Westside apartment building that is mosty converted to a Hotel that seems to cater to younger, overseas travellers. The room was quite large, the beds comfy, and the shared bathrooms very clean and hassle free. The Hotel is currently adding private baths to many of the rooms, and some visible electrical preparations for the added bathroom were there in our room.
The best thing about the Alexander is the LOCATION. At West 94^th and West End, the hotel is is literally a block and a quarter from the 96^th Street and Broadway 1 2 3 train subway station. The station is one of the best on the Westside because both local and express trains stop there, greatly speeding travel to all parts of the subway system. Also, the station is extremely safe and well patrolled by the NYPD. By subway, Times Square is less than a 10 minute ride on an express train. From there, you are 10 minutes from any major attraction in Manhattan. The NY Subway is so amazing. It is an attraction in itself.
The neighborhood is among the very best in the city. The crime rate is very low, the street is very quiet and is filled with vintage upscale apartment buildings. The neighborhood looks like a Manhattan movie set. There are many diners, bakeries, cafes just steps away. We really enjoyed the cheap eats at the Europan Café and Obento Delight.
Great place!!!