[Don Pelayo]

After living in the Capital Region for about 4 years, I thought I might throw in a data sheet:

General:
The “Capital Region” refers to all of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, plus everything in between. To begin with, Troy is a shitty post-industrial town. Ignore it, the only point of interest are Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute/ RPI (75% guys, 20% fatties & nerds). Schenectady’ only real industry is General Electric, but you have Union College there. Lots of liberal arts types over there, so if hipster girls are your thing, see it.
Stick to Albany, where you have the University at Albany, the College of St Rose, and Siena College all close by.
The best places to stay are at some of the motels in the area (Best Western, Hilton Garden Inn).


Nightlife:
There are two main areas for nightlife: the “Student Ghetto” and Pearl Street. The Student Ghetto is basically full of house parties and student bars (18-22 years old). Also full of Long Island people, wannabe guidos and guidettes, douche bags, and roid monkeys, all in the same age range. In general once people turn 21 and over they head downtown to Pearl St. If you know people in the party frats they will hook you up with some good parties in the ghetto. Some bars include Bogie’s and the Partridge Pub. However, Washington Tavern is a diamond in the rough, slightly better than the rest of the neighborhood.

However, after the incident last year these idiots created the police started cracking down:
Kegs and Eggs

Pearl St. got the best the region has to offer. Here you can find Envy Lounge, Blue, Jillian’s, amongst other venues. There isn’t much beyond this street.

Day Game:
Definitely hit up the Tulip festival, usually held during the first week of May. Fly chicks that live in the area will be around, music food and events everywhere, particularly around downtown and Washington Park. Usually in groups of 3+, with friends, male friends, bfs, etc.
Other than that, def. try the UAlbany campus, particularly if there is an event going on (concert on campus). Crossgates Mall and Colonie Center Mall are also options if you’re up for that.
(Personally, I’ve seen many better malls in other countries).

Girls:
Generic east coast girls with east-coast mentality and wannabe guidettes. Uggs, hoodies, fake blond and tan, iphone addicts, and annoying long island accents. UAlbany and St. Rose students are the sluttiest of the colleges in the area. Union is hit or miss, don’t bother with RPI.

Logistics:
Students have $3 taxi rides, but everyone else usually pays $10 from downtown to the outskirts of Albany. Bring your own car.


P.S> I'm a rookie to the forum, so I'd appreciate any input from the veterans if I'm doing something wrong.

[jordypip23]

At my current age if I was in situated in Albany, it would be difficult to resist the temptation to frequently take that 2.5 hour train ride or whatever it is to NYC lol. Albany seems great for earlier 20's and college age folk.

(10-01-2012 04:35 PM)Don Pelayo Wrote:  

After living in the Capital Region for about 4 years, I thought I might throw in a data sheet:

General:
The “Capital Region” refers to all of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, plus everything in between. To begin with, Troy is a shitty post-industrial town. Ignore it, the only point of interest are Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute/ RPI (75% guys, 20% fatties & nerds). Schenectady’ only real industry is General Electric, but you have Union College there. Lots of liberal arts types over there, so if hipster girls are your thing, see it.
Stick to Albany, where you have the University at Albany, the College of St Rose, and Siena College all close by.
The best places to stay are at some of the motels in the area (Best Western, Hilton Garden Inn).


Nightlife:
There are two main areas for nightlife: the “Student Ghetto” and Pearl Street. The Student Ghetto is basically full of house parties and student bars (18-22 years old). Also full of Long Island people, wannabe guidos and guidettes, douche bags, and roid monkeys, all in the same age range. In general once people turn 21 and over they head downtown to Pearl St. If you know people in the party frats they will hook you up with some good parties in the ghetto. Some bars include Bogie’s and the Partridge Pub. However, Washington Tavern is a diamond in the rough, slightly better than the rest of the neighborhood.

However, after the incident last year these idiots created the police started cracking down:
Kegs and Eggs

Pearl St. got the best the region has to offer. Here you can find Envy Lounge, Blue, Jillian’s, amongst other venues. There isn’t much beyond this street.

Day Game:
Definitely hit up the Tulip festival, usually held during the first week of May. Fly chicks that live in the area will be around, music food and events everywhere, particularly around downtown and Washington Park. Usually in groups of 3+, with friends, male friends, bfs, etc.
Other than that, def. try the UAlbany campus, particularly if there is an event going on (concert on campus). Crossgates Mall and Colonie Center Mall are also options if you’re up for that.
(Personally, I’ve seen many better malls in other countries).

Girls:
Generic east coast girls with east-coast mentality and wannabe guidettes. Uggs, hoodies, fake blond and tan, iphone addicts, and annoying long island accents. UAlbany and St. Rose students are the sluttiest of the colleges in the area. Union is hit or miss, don’t bother with RPI.

Logistics:
Students have $3 taxi rides, but everyone else usually pays $10 from downtown to the outskirts of Albany. Bring your own car.


P.S> I'm a rookie to the forum, so I'd appreciate any input from the veterans if I'm doing something wrong.

[Excelsior]

This is pretty accurate, particularly the discussion of the nightlife.

The Cap. District is often overlooked as a major college area. As mentioned, it has UAlbany, St. Rose, Siena, Union, and RPI (meh, engineering school). There are also a handful of smaller colleges around in Sage, Skidmore and Suny-Cobleskill, plus several community colleges (Hudson Valley, Schenectady, Adirondack) in the area. Tons of young people floating around.

Granted, it isn't an area I could see many planning to visit regularly without work/academic/family related obligations, but the place offers decent bang for the buck if you are around.
And yes, the ladies over at St. Rose/UAlbany do get freaky on not too irregular occasions. I generally find young girls around here relatively open-minded and generally open for fun if you're out to party.

And speaking of those, these kids know how to party too. They take it quite seriously, and have consistently earned national recognition for this during the past decade or so. These videos should give a pretty good idea (a few of my old high school classmates can be seen as well):

Debauchery on this scale does not occur regularly in the student ghettos (thank goodness), but the regular, weekly parties do get fairly wild downtown. The cops keep busy.

[Don Pelayo]

I try to hit up NYC on occasion, although Albany's not that bad; as pointed out (cheaper too!)
- I am in my early 20's.

Although right now I'm trying to save up to hit up eastern Europe around New Year's.

[Aer]

I can discuss this subject in depth.

I've experienced almost all that St. Rose has to offer as I've had friends there a couple years ago, and all I have to say is that Albany is buck wild at times, but totally dead at others.

Weekends to watch:
Syllabus week in the Fall (early autumn around Sept 1st or so)
Larkfest (mid-October)
The Armory (whenever a concert is in town such as an electronic concert)

Then people hibernate in the winter, but then spring comes and everyone, I mean everyone comes out to party...

As was mentioned, Tulipfest is the best. I walked around shirtless there, and I seriously was touched by almost every hot girl that walked by me. I also shotgunned a few beers in the bushes, an overall good time.

There was fountain day, which was a literal fuckfest, but I think shit's going down with the admin (since Kegs and Eggs) and they got rid of it.

Mid-Tier city rating- 5/10 if you don't know anyone, 8/10 if you do. 9/10 if you're under 22.

[TheCaptainPower]

@Don, good shit! I spend a year at Suny Albany in the Indian Quad.

My favorite places back then were Paulies, the Lamp Post, and The branch. I think 2 of those are closed now?

Albany is definately a good time for a weekend, cheap beer, and lots of college women.

My friends used to have a house on Ontario st, so I used to come up once a month from Brooklyn to party.

Never been to Tulip fest, definately got to hit that up!!

Captain P!

[Rang off the Pipe]

Don Pelayo's post is a pretty good review of Albany. I made a stop there this weekend on my way up to Canada, and he isn't kidding about the sluttiness of the students. The girls are definitely fair game and most are out to be picked up by a guy while dressing nicely to boot. That's not something I can say for all of the college atmospheres in New York (I've been out at nearly 10 college towns upstate).

A place I will mention that's downtown is the Pearl Street Pub. It's a huge place with many different rooms that gets packed on Saturdays especially. It's too loud to even bother talking and I would just recommend directly approaching girls and getting them to dance with you. A wing helps but it's not really necessary.

[Cobra]

I landed in Albany directly from India in 90. Couldn't speak english for shit. Had a tough time navigating the schools there. Albany high school was a shitty experience.

I ended up going to UAlbany too. Didn't have any game then. Anyways, this thread brought back memories and also thought about what I should have done.

I got in to a little scuffle with a beta while hitting on girls at the bar in Washington Tavern last time I visited.

If anyone is around the next time I'm there, would be happy to hang and game as I do go out quite a bit to game when I'm there with a friend.

[dark_g]

Although it's a 45 Min ride north of Albany, I think Saratoga Springs should be included here. During the winter, don't bother. It's cold and not that many people are in the party mood. But come summer, especially during track season. There is prime ass in this town. Not uncommon to see a celebrity or two hanging out downtown or at the race track. You can call it "Hamptons light", minus the beach. Wealthy people bring their families up for vacation and the slutty daughters love to hangout at the night clubs showing off their latest fashions. I've had more success hanging out in "Toga" than I have had in Albany. On the main strip, most bars are within walking distance of each other. If you're not feeling the vibe in one bar, you can walk over to the next. The streets are filled with bands and street performers, making it fun just to walk around, people watch and sling some game. This is a fun town and should not be overlooked when traveling north of NYC.

[Rang off the Pipe]

Ok. I've certainly got more information to add on the nightlife end, despite the fact that Easter weekend skewed things since many students weren't here. Daygame was basically nonexistent since the UAlbany campus was a ghost town and there are hardly any townies that aren't fat, tattooed, or unattractive. I made one approach at the campus but my target didn't go for any of my bait.

Pearl Street Pub-I mentioned this place in an earlier post and it's where you'll find the most volume of people. This a multiroom bar and restaurant that turns into a nightclub on the weekends. It's your typical club scene where you'll have crowds of people so close together that it's tough to move, as well as your bitch shields. Expect to get some dismissals here, but there are plenty of girls anyway. Saturday seems to be the night for this place.

The City Beer Hall-This place is a block away from the arena and is smaller than Pearl Street Pub. The first floor has tables and the main bar, while the second floor has a smaller bar and a dance floor. The 2nd floor has a 90's night on Saturday that brings a decent amount of people. There was a decent turnout here on both nights that I was here but it wasn't at full strength. Slightly more breathing room to do conversational approaches here.

Cafe Hollywood-This is one of the places on Lark Street. It's worth a stop if you're around that area but one could avoid this place altogether quite honestly.

Lark Tavern-Near the Lark/Madison intersection and has a decent turnout. The bar is at the front and the back has a dance floor. There's certainly more of a..."ratchet" crowd here. Again, there weren't many students around, so my impression is affected by that.

Lionheart Pub-Across the street from Lark Tavern, this is your standard dive bar. Not many people here when I went on Friday.


Last call in Albany is 4 AM, but most places start to close at 3. Definitely stay out the whole night if you can. There seemed to be a lot of taxis around so I don't think that would be too much of an issue. Some people don't recommend walking places during the night but it seemed more empty than dangerous to me. Obviously exercise caution.


Coming from New York, Albany is definitely a bit of a more relaxed experience. That being said, I didn't get any lays or even makeouts despite some very good approaches. Girls are more approachable here, although you still have to run somewhat of a clown game to keep their attention. Soloing like I did can be tricky because many of the girls were in tight groups and whenever I'd be building good comfort with someone, the friend would pull them away either sooner or later. There were also a lot of mixed groups for whatever reason although the ratios weren't totally horrible. I'd recommend staying somewhere close to the action downtown if you don't have student friends. That being said, Albany is definitely a much better place for people in their 20's, preferably early 20's.