This place has one of the hottest rooms I've ever been in. The combination of barely being able to breathe from the heat to immediately jumping into a freezing murky pool is addictive. There's also a great roof patio for a change of scenery. A good old school New York spot.
"Mills" is my local bar, I live in that block, it's an old horse stable (for two horses) it's tiny, cozy, great drinks, food is great too - in the summer you can sit outside
Within an couple hours' drive of NYC, you can find lots of sleepy seaside towns. Not only can you get your soft ice cream and salt water taffy on, but you can still spot cool, hand-lettered signs and other relics of a past generation's amusements.
The reputation of Mission Chinese Food is for being cool, weird, and extremely eccentric, which tends to mean that you either love it or hate it (an assessment that is at least somewhat correlated to your personal tolerance for spice).