Before the microphones went up, this stretch of West 35th Street ran on notions and trim — Garment District wholesalers moving stock through ground-floor units with roll-up gates and handwritten signs. Some of that trade still holds a few doors down. But behind one plain storefront near the Koreatown border, a 2008 build-out swapped bolts of fabric for antique radios, vintage microphones, and nine themed rooms, turning the space into Radio Star Karaoke, where a private room can run well past midnight most nights of the week.
Karpo can check which of Radio Star's private rooms are free tonight and flag whether nearby Koreatown karaoke spots are still open once your hour runs out.
A wholesale block that grew a nightlife spine
West 35th Street, below Sixth Avenue, still carries the working grammar of the Garment District — plain frontages, roll-up gates, storefronts built for shipping trim and fabric rather than for foot traffic. That pattern holds in patches along the block, but as the street runs toward Koreatown's core it thins out, replaced by restaurants, barbecue rooms, and bars that keep the lights on long after the wholesale trade has shuttered for the day.
Radio Star Karaoke opened at 3 West 35th Street in 2008, fitted into a ground-floor unit that could just as easily have stayed a showroom. Rather than erase the block's working bones, the build-out layered a modern interior over them, using antique radios and microphones as the connective material between the street outside and the private rooms inside.
Antique radios doing the decorating
The main lounge and the corridors leading off it are lined with old radios and microphones, chosen for how they read against a contemporary fit-out rather than for strict period accuracy. It is a nostalgia set dressed into a working bar, not a museum case, and the effect is deliberately mixed rather than uniform.
That mixing carries into the rooms themselves. The Interstates Room is built around vintage license plates and coloured lighting effects; the Radio Room leans on retro radio-set decor spread across several seating areas. Rooms named for The Beatles, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and Playboy each carry era-specific memorabilia tied to their namesake, so the theme changes noticeably from door to door.
Nine rooms, a wide spread of sizes
There are roughly nine to ten private rooms in total, running from small duet-style spaces built for two to five people up to a large room that different listings put at either 40 to 45 people or, on one account, as many as 180 — a gap worth confirming directly if you are booking for a big group.
Hourly hire runs from around $50 for the smallest room up to roughly $260 for the largest, though published figures vary between sources and should be treated as a starting point rather than a fixed number. An 18% gratuity and tax is added on top, food and drink are billed separately, and every booking carries a one-hour minimum.
How a night here actually gets booked
Private rooms are reserved ahead of time, and reservations are worth making early for weekend nights in particular, since staffing and room availability shift day to day. A 48-hour cancellation policy applies, with a fee calculated against the first hour of whatever room was held — useful to know before locking in a Friday slot on a whim.
The open bar and stage area runs on its own, separate system: a paper ticket handed to staff, at roughly $3 a song, with no private room required. That means a walk-in who hasn't booked anything can still get up and sing at the bar while a group two doors down works through a themed room on the clock. Everyone entering needs to be 21 or older with valid state ID or a passport.
Matching the room to the group
For smaller parties, the Duet and Marilyn rooms sit at the cheaper end of the hourly scale, built for two to five people and priced accordingly. Step up to the larger themed rooms — Elvis or Interstates among them — and the hourly rate jumps sharply, reflecting both the extra space and the higher capacity rather than a flat per-head increase.
Food and drink run alongside whatever room is booked: edamame, potstickers, and wings sit on the kitchen menu, with cocktails, beer, wine, and soju covering the bar side. None of it is included in the room rate, so a night's total cost is really the hourly hire plus gratuity plus whatever the table orders.
One storefront among several on the same stretch
Radio Star sits within a few blocks of other private-room karaoke venues, including Karaoke K, Karaoke Duet 35, and Space Karaoke Bar & Lounge, putting it in direct competition on a corridor that already specialises in exactly this kind of night out. That density is part of the appeal — if a room isn't available at one address, another is usually a short walk away.
The wider block, close to Herald Square, stays visibly active well past standard dinner hours, with storefront signage and street-level restaurants keeping the pavement busy long after the Garment District's daytime trade has gone quiet.
Getting the timing right
The venue's alcohol license allows service as late as 4am on its latest nights, but published hours differ slightly between the venue's own information and third-party listings, particularly over whether a given weeknight closes at 2am or runs later. Anyone planning a late session should confirm the exact closing time before building a night around it.
One thing worth checking directly rather than assuming: a genuinely deep K-pop catalogue is a common feature of Koreatown karaoke rooms generally, but this venue's own materials describe a broad, frequently updated song list rather than marketing itself specifically as K-pop-focused. If that's the priority for the night, it's worth asking staff or checking the current list before booking.
Practical notes
Radio Star Karaoke is at 3 West 35th Street, on the Garment District side of Koreatown, a short walk from Herald Square and the 34th Street subway hubs. Rooms are booked by the hour with a one-hour minimum, an 18% gratuity and tax added on top, and a 48-hour cancellation policy tied to the first hour's cost. The open bar and stage operate on a separate $3-per-song ticket system for walk-ins without a room. Entry requires valid state ID or a passport and a minimum age of 21. Confirm current room rates, exact closing hours, and any happy hour terms directly before planning a night, since published details vary between sources.
Tags: #Koreatown #PrivateKaraoke #KaraokeRoomsNYC #MidtownManhattan #GarmentDistrict #NYCNightlife #KaraokeNearMe #GroupNightOut #Soju #LateNightNYC #ThemeRooms #K17Blocks #HeraldSquareArea #NYCKaraokeBar
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo first
Wondering whether a room will actually be free tonight, or if the bar's closing time really stretches to 4am this week? Ask Karpo for Radio Star's current room availability and the neighbourhood's other open karaoke rooms before you head out.
