I would avoid this hotel if at all possible.
I stayed there on a business trip last year and all of us on the trip agreed it was the worst hotel we had stayed in (in the western world anyway). In fact we told our boss that we would not be travelling to NYC again if they proposed that we stay in the hotel.
The hotel does have an odd smell - I thought it was like grass - as in the funny kind.
There were some odd characters hanging around in the lobby, which is a dismal place.
The rooms were like something out of Taxi Driver and you'd definitely want flip flops to walk on the carpet etc.
Take a left instead of a right when you exit the building and the street gets very seedy very fast i.e. people hanging around, porn shops etc.
In short, I think the hotel would require a major overhaul to bring it up to scratch. Accommodation in New York is not cheap but I'd recommend paying the extra to not stay in the New Yorker.