This is Bath Club of NY. Rustam, a former nuclear engineer who fled Uzbekistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been running it since 1998.

I ask him about the rumor that Eastern Promises-style Russian gangsters would meet here. “A long time ago,” he admits. “Because in sauna, 190 degrees, you can record nothing there. No wires. They can speak freely.

“They used to come, talk, have nice food. Then sometimes go to the peace, or sometimes go to the war.”