As far I know for the Statue of Liberty, you can a purchase a ticket individually from the Battery Park kiosk by the South Ferry. This website has the all the info you need on it: http://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm
Empire State buiding I would say to avoid at all costs because it's a massive tourist trap and do Top of The Rock instead which is much cheaper and not full of tourists. You'll get the same views of the city, plus tour NBC studios, plus Rockefeller Plaza/5th ave nearby, and Nintendo World in the same vicinity as a bonus.
One World Trade Center, again, you can buy tickets individually in this website. However, I'm pretty damn sure you can get some discount code because admission is otherwise pricey but that ultimately depends on your budget for your trip.
As for the best place to stay at, I personally can't say since it ultimately depends on what you want to do/see. It sounds like everything that you want to see is in Manhattan in this case so you might want to consider somewhere close to midtown/the Hell's Kitchen area. Plus if you want to do Brooklyn/Queens, you have a bunch of trains in the area easily accessible. Each borough is another world in and of itself.
Conversely, you can go for an Airbnb place that's further up north in Manhattan but still easily accessible to downtown Manhattan. My advice with Airbnb is to be wary of price gouging and use your best judgement.
I should have a surplus of money coming in by the first week of November so I would be down to drink a beer or two. Many GAF members work a 9-5 job/late night job and/or have class but I think it wouldn't be a problem because it would be during Happy Hour (in a nutshell, drinks/food are discounted between the hours of 14:00-17:00 or even 18:00 in some bars). I'm pretty damn sure I can round up DoktorEvil, number47, Penguin, and whoever else is interested can post in the thread/show up once the place/time gets ironed out.
Personally, I'm usually free on Mondays after 4PM (16:00), 6:30PM (16:30) on Tuesdays since those are the two days of the week I'm always in downtown Manhattan. I'm free every other day as well. If it's beer you want, two places with a good beer selection immediately stick out to me: Pony Bar and Valhalla. There's also a few German pubs in the midtown area that I can think of including Reichenbach Hall and Bierhaus.
