Serves as a special outdoor photoshoot-location! Great "natural" backdrop and good to have a walk around in the area as well!

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).

Pratt has an amazing sculpture park open for everyone to see. 

Part of the Marlow restaurant group, Diner is one of the more casual / rustic options. The menu changes daily and is written out (most likely upside down by the wait staff) on your table or the back of a receipt. The only constant item is the burger, which to be honest, is one of the best in the neighborhood. If they have a breakfast sandwich for brunch, get that. The fried chicken sandwich (with dark meat) is also a favorite. They make scrambled egg dishes better than most. Dinner is solid all around (they crush a steak for two). Homemade ketchup and dijon mustard are on every table, so regardless of what you get, these two condiments are worth the visit. 

Having the experience of owning and running a coral reef aquarium (and frequenting this particular shop about once a week) - I was sad to hear it closed it's doors. Their reef display tank was always amazing. These pictures were taken from PetCo at Union Square (I also used to go there for my saltwater needs).