Your reactions to the closing of the Larkin Hi-Fi Bar in Albany

The Larkin Hi-Fi Bar has closed after months of fighting against neighborhood noise complaints, the city’s onerous cabaret law, and the years-long decline of Lark Street.

In our reader poll, 81% of you expressed disappointment at the bar’s closing, while 11% of you said you were “OK with it.” The remaining votes were from folks who “didn’t care or didn’t live in Albany.”

Here’s a sampling of your reactions:

• “Albany is such a frustrating situation. Why can’t our capital city be amazing with a thriving downtown, a state-of-the-art state museum, low crime, and high ranking schools? Other cities make it happen. It’s not an impossible dream. These days I don’t go there much. My perception is that there’s not much going on in Albany and it’s not safe compared to Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga. It’s as if the powers that be want to pretend it’s something other than what it is: a capital city representing New York to the rest of the state, the country, and the world. This Albany is what they see. It should be better. ”

• “I celebrated my birthday there last year. I'm getting older, but Lark Street was where we came after an evening out, sometimes for dinner. I frequently go for music at the Lark Tavern. I love the Eleven. Lark Hall brings us some incredible entertainment. We have to do better & we have to love our businesses. If we can help the city understand the problems on lark street, we can facilitate good community development downtown, Upper Madison, New Scotland, Delaware and other small but important neighborhood clusters.”

• “What Nick failed to mention is that he was essentially evicted for non payment of rent for the last four months, it’s just easier to blame everyone else instead. That’s why Hi-Fi is closing. Also! As someone who lives at the address Nick has been weirdly obsessed with—I could hear plain as day a lot of nights his DJs until 2-3AM making it incredibly difficult to sleep. I’m all for business’ and bars and love where I live. But being weirdly obsessed with a group of people and failing to mention their inability to pay rent? ”

• “Another long established business in the Lark Street area leaving....I've known Lark Street for the past 40 years, sadly, it's certainly not what it use to be. ”

• “Lark Street just keeps declining. No reason to go there.”

• “If you want quiet living move to the burbs! We need more retail, restaurants, and bars on Lark and downtown! ”

• “We live in one of Albany’s suburbs. We used to come into the city for entertainment. Since at least Covid we’ve found it’s rarely worth the effort. It’s disappointing (and frankly a little embarrassing) that, as a state capital, downtown Albany has so little going on. ”

• “Too much crime in downtown, would never move back there. Makes complete business sense to close down.”

• “NIMBYs have been destroying Lark street for years with no end in sight. I'll never understand why people choose to live in that area and consistently complain about nightlife. Move to the suburbs if you don't like city life, don't ruin it for the rest of us who do!”

• “Albany is in a 10 plus year death spiral and Sheehan 2.0 will help speed it (call it DorceyVille if you will).”

• “Yes it's upsetting. But nightlife discourages panhanders? Where did you get that? Have you ever been to Lark St. after dark, or any other time of day? I don't mind music within reasonable hours and decibels, but panhandlers and "rough sleepers" are the bane of the neighborhood. I lived on Haight St. (SF) in the '60s, where the term "street people" originated, and Lark St. in the '20s is pretty much the same scene.”

• “Lived in Albany for 23 years and left in 2020. Love the people and still work in Albany, but this needs to be a major focus of the new mayor or else the city is doomed. I’m older, and don’t go out much unless theres good music or DJ’s and hence RARELY ever go out in Albany. The only venues left in the city which seems to regularly have live music or DJs are Lark Hall and Fuze Box. That’s it. I work with mostly 25-30 year olds and they rarely ever go out in Albany, they go to Troy, Saratoga and even Schenectady (!!!) before going out in Albany. This is why, unless they have a good job or other commitments keeping them hear, young people leave Albany as soon as they possible. They see no future here. The city will continue to die unless we start to focus on arts, culture, and music, and create a nightlife scene that people care about.”

• “I’m moving out of Albany in part due to the death of Lark Street and Washington Park events. ”

• “The city of Albany cannot get out of its own way. Its reputation outside of NY is embarrassing.”

• “College kids ruined Lark Street way before Covid. The city is never going to let that area be a party street again. Better to setup in the Warehouse District or out of Albany altogether. Albany is dead once state employees go home. ”

• “I don’t go downtown much anymore due to the higher crime level. I think the local government needs to focus on job training and jobs so more people have jobs and don’t resort to petty crime.”

• “I live on the other end of Lark, so I don’t know what was happening with this business and its neighbors but I feel like there’s more to this story than a difficult cabaret law. Businesses near me seem able to get licenses. ”

• “The LARK BID needs to get some teeth again and position entertainment, arts and culture front and center. Folks need to understand when they move into a district like Lark Street, there will be sounds of a vibrant city...its part of the deal.”

• “Please put pressure on the new mayor to do something positive on this front. It’s one of many litmus tests for the new mayor who I already have serious doubts about. ”

• “The place has such an amazing energy and unique cocktails. I’m really going to miss going there.”

• “There's a lot to unpack here. I used to live just off Lark St. in the early oughts for several years, and it was a vibrant mainstay of my nightlife as well as an everyday community I walked through. I got to know it well. There have always been elements of poverty, substance ab/use, and precarious enterprise. There has always been revelry and conflict, loud voices, noises, music, and traffic—less so now, which is disconcerting. I observe an oversaturation of bars and restaurants. I feel the waning activity is a warier gentry with less disposable income. I experience city policy as incongruent with the success of late-light local business. More people are falling on hard times and taking to the streets. It makes me wonder who is Lark St. for these days? Who lives there now? What do they need? What do they want? Where will any of it come from? Has anyone been displaced? I wonder if there's a disconnect between the needs of the community and the aspirations of those investing in it. What is the balance between sustainable and sexy? What are the intentions of those who seek their fortunes and fates on Lark St.?”

• “I only know what I have read. Is the problem with the bureaucracy, were there mitigating factors. We should look deeper and appeal to the new mayor to correct. ”

• “Back in the late 1980s & early 1990s Lark Street was bustling with businesses and people all hours of the day and night! And it was loud then, it was fun, and much safer than it is today!! Why won’t the city allow that positive energy to come back?!”

• “Other bars have been successful in Albany- check out the Warehouse District. Hi-Fi chose to shame everyone but themselves by not following the cabaret law.”

• “The owners seemed to go out of their way to unnecessarily antagonize the neighborhood and the city. I don't doubt the neighbors were being NIMBYs, but I also know the owner punched a code enforcement officer who was merely doing his job. They made it harder on themselves to run a successful business and seem to be blaming everyone else for it.”

• “I have never been to the Larkin so I can’t comment on that, but both Ama Cocina and El Loco have deteriorated so much in their service and hospitality (especially El Loco, which I had been going to since I moved to Albany in 1986) that I think they have a lot of nerve blaming the city! For every failed business you can point out five more in the city that are doing just fine. It’s easier to blame the city than look at themselves and how they are running their business.”