I stayed in The Strand for 5 nights on a recent city break to NYC. While checking in the front desk staff weren't overly friendly but for the rest of the trip the staff were all very nice and helpful.
The room was small, but I suppose that is standard for NYC. We had to unpack our stuff as there was nowhere to keep our suitcases. The cupboard space was just TINY - once we put our empty suitcase in there, it was pretty much full. The room was reasonably clean but not spotless - the insides of the drawers were extremely dusty and had crumbs and hair in them, and the light switches were a bit grimy. Otherwise it was perfectly fine, bed was comfortable.
VERY annoying not to have a fridge in the room! As others have said, it was basically a vending machine and we were told clearly at check-in not to touch anything unless we wanted to be charged. It was clearly marked on the machine as well. They said they were unable to empty it as they contract this service out to a vending company. I like to keep bottles of water in the room so this was extremely pointless.
The rooftop bar is lovely - really comfy casual sofa seating and friendly bartender and great view of the Empire State Building.
As for location, Times Square and the Macy's/Herald Square shopping area were both within a 5 minute walk, as was access to the subway (a number of lines on 34th street) so it was really easy to get around the city from there. Also the Empire State Building was one street down (although we did not visit it). However the area around the hotel itself wasn't too great - there were a number of sex shops on the street, with mannequins wearing leather costumes in the window. Didn't really bother me but might bother some, made me feel we were in a seedy part of town even though we were not. My main gripe is that we couldn't any decent casual restaurants around, although there was a nice deli across the road. There was construction work going on next door but we did not hear anything.
All in all it was a good stay but I would not stay here again. That is mainly down to the location - I would rather be in a more 'neighbourhood' part of NYC than this touristy area.
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