Of course hotel is cheap and situated near metro station and southern parts of Central Park. But the rest isn't good. Rooms are big, but dirty and dark, staff is unkind. If you want to rest during NY visit - pay more at other hotel. This place is risky.
Reservation system does not work good - they should fix it.

I've arrived in NY i late evening. In hostel reception I heard that of course I have valid confirmed reservation, but they don't have free rooms ?!? I haven't got such serious situation in much more wild countries. But this is NY - the middle of civilisation ?!
Man in reception told me, that there is nobody responsible for that situation, and today it is impossible to solve the problem, so I should take myself and find any hotel as soon as I can (it wasn't easy). I returned to West Side Inn next day, they gave me back money for more expensive room in other hotel and gave me also little discount for next nights in West Side Inn. No simple word like "sorry". Next days I saw many times people on reception desk with the same problem. So I think - avoid this hostel.

My friend and I stayed at this hostel the first week of August for a whole week. We never did read reviews for this one, but we read reviews for the Candy Hostel and people were saying how much better THIS ONE is compared to the Candy. So we thought we'd give it a shot. We had to make a 60 dollar deposit and when we got there, the price was a LOT higher than what the website gave us. We had a hard time finding the place and when we walked into the lobby we thought it looked alright. WRONG
-the staff was very unfriendly and unhelpful
-the elevator trapped us for 2 minutes....scared us to DEATH
-we thought we'd have two beds...we walked into the room and just stood there with our mouths hanging open.
-ONE bed.
- a cheap floor fan (and it was August so it was still hot outside).
- a rip off tv that only got one fuzzy new york channel.
-one big mirror.
-two outlets for two people who had cell phones, ipods, etc.
-and we had TONS of luggage so we had to crawl over our stuff and almost broke our necks.
Overall, the room was as big as a closet. There was no where to take out the trash so we had to use plastic bags and we were there for a week so it started to smell with our beyond overflowing trash. I have nightmares of that place because it had eerie lighting and spooky halls. The kitchens were discusting-bring your own kitchen gear. The bathrooms were decent surprisingly but I would recemmond bringing your own towels, bath essentials and flip flops. The window in the bathroom did not shut. The sheets and pillows seem clean BUT I wound up at Immediate Care when I got home because I either broke out from the detergent in the sheets or bed bug bites (but my friend didn't have any problems so I don't know). I only slept and took a shower (which I recommend doing in the afternoon before seeing a musical or going out for the night because no one is around) and high-tailed it out of there.
This place is ALRIGHT if you plan on staying for one night but just to sleep. My friend was doing a camp so I was sight-seeing, shopping and spending time with a friend who was in a musical and dreaded coming back to the room. The location is alright. It's near the subway stop but at night it's scary. If your a college student that don't have alot of money...please try to find some place better or keep saving up for something more expensive and worth it. This place was overpriced for the crap that you get.

Good points: location & price. The rest is terrible (!). Do not expect anything. Only sleep there and then get out asap. There is a really nice breakfast location just next to the closest MacDonald's btw.