Going to New York for the first time, where abouts should I stay?

[newyorknewyorkk]

I'm going to New York for the first time in January next year, and have been trying to look for where to stay. I'm going with a friend, and we'll be doing the typical tourist things as it's both of our first times visiting. We were thinking near Times Square as it seems pretty central, but I've read a few posts on Mumsnet saying not to stay in Midtown.

We don't want to spend too much, we found a hotel in Midtown for £690 for 6 nights in a package deal with BA, so ideally want something around that kind of price if possible. Ideally, we would want two separate twin beds rather than sharing but it seems like not many hotels in NY offer this, especially within our budget.

Does anyone have any recommendations of either general areas to look at, or specific hotel recommendations? Thank you in advance

Also the subway is absolutely fine. No worse than London. It always gets such a bad reputation but I don't know why.

@NashvilleQueen
We didn’t find it very easy to use and it took DD a while to get it when she interned there. Lack of live train info on the platforms is the main issue. London tube is way better. Trains ending up somewhere else was an issue for us one day! Who knew it was linking with another line to go under the East River? Water cascading down onto platforms and generally filthy trains. The H&C line in London is fantastic by comparison. As we stayed in Soho it was worth using but it’s not very good and certainly confusing due to lack of accurate real time info.