The Big Beautiful Record Store of the Past is Back at Darkside
Miss digging through bins for hours in search of buried audio treasure? Darkside Records in a former Poughkeepsie church will bring you back.
In these days of encroaching AI, it’s gratifying to see the digital slop being counteracted with a rising love in human-made, tactile, and analog media among music fans of all ages. And on the Hudson Valley retail landscape perhaps the most glorious manifestation of this phenomenon has been the success story of Poughkeepsie’s Darkside Records, which this month opened its new store on Cannon Street.
The new site, which occupies a 19th-century, Grecian-columned building in the city’s downtown, is Darkside’s third location and marks its return to the historic neighborhood. Originally opened on Main Street in 2011, the store relocated six years later to a former OTB building on Dutchess Turnpike until acquiring its latest location, which was previously the home of events space Revel 32.
Built as church in 1845 and at one time a Masonic temple, the structure will now be a church and temple of music and vinyl, offering thousands of new and used records, CDs, and DVDs, along with books, magazines, T-shirts, turntables and audio equipment, and other items and occasionally hosting live events.
“The community you find when you’re hanging out in a record shop isn’t something you can get online,” said Darkside customer Tyler Irish when your arts editor interviewed him for a 2016 article about the store. Amen to that.
Darkside Records is open seven days a week at 32 Cannon Street in Poughkeepsie, next to King’s Court Brewing.
Written by
Peter Aaron is the arts editor for Chronogram.
