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.

My two nights at the West Side Inn stand out as the worst travel experience of my life. It has been a while since I stayed there, but I just stumbled across the trip advisor listing and see that apparently it has not improved. I have stayed at cheap hostels in Europe and plenty of cheap roadside motels in the US. I am REALLY not picky. But this was way beyond anything I have seen before. Every surface of the halls, bedroom, communal bathroom, and kitchen area were filthy in addition to being tiny, old, and broken down. I made the mistake of leaving my shower shoes at home, so I tied plastic grocery bags around my feet so that they didn't come in contact with anything when I was showering and getting dressed -- it was that bad. Maybe I was there on a bad day or something, but I just can't even convey how grimy everything was. There also weren't nearly enough bathrooms, so you had to fight a crowd just to get to the shower. Half the lights didn't seem to be working, so everything was just barely lit -- which I guess just helped to camouflage the dirt. I know you get what you pay for, and it was super cheap by NYC standards, but I still blame the West Side Inn for having a totally misleading web site. If you are desperate for something really cheap, then I guess maybe I can see staying there -- just know that what you're getting looks like a crack house from out of the movies.

I've been in very crappy cheap hotels in nyc, and I use to be very tolerant with them ... but this is certainly the worst! After a week I still suffer from the bites of the bedbugs. I wasn't planning to spend much time in the hotel, but still it was a very disgusting experience. I'd only recommend it for those who need a cheap place to spend a single night