When Steve Bates called final drinks at North Bar, Meche Nightclub and ICMB on Northbourne Avenue he was confident nightlife would continue in Civic but was sceptical about whether it would thrive in the Sydney Building, which has hosted bars and nightclubs since the early 1970s.

So if Canberra's nightlife has shifted from its historical home in Civic to new hubs of activity, when was it at its best?

Manny Notaras, the chair of Canberra CBD and has lived in Canberra since 1946, said the nightlife at the Sydney Building was most lively during the late 1970s and early 1980s following the success of the notorious Private Bin nightclub.

"The definitive nightclub was the Private Bin which opened around about 1973-4 and was hugely popular," he said.

"Off the back of their success there's been little places popping up ever since."

The owner of Academy Nightclub in Civic Frank Condi also looked back fondly on his times at Private Bin in the early 1990s and said a series of positive memories had all blended together over the years.

"I started there in 1990 and was there until around 1998 and during that whole time the area was booming but there wasn't much competition," he said.

"Private Bin was really the only nightclub at the stage and it was a big establishment but there was also Mooseheads of course and a number of small bars along that strip."

Emma Vaituutuu, the manager of Soju Girl across the road in the Melbourne Building, recalled her days partying in the Sydney Building and said it had changed dramatically since her heyday in the mid-2000s.

"I do remember it being really busy back in those days and we always headed out in a Thursday night when it was never this quiet," she said.

"It was just club hoping from one place to another but always in the Sydney Building. I used to go to Stylers, Sultans, Mooseheads, Meche Nightclub and Academy when it first opened."

Rod Sloan, who has been driving a taxi in Canberra since 2004, said he noticed a decline in people drinking at the Sydney Building from around 2005.

"Back when I first started on night shifts, I could pick up people before I got to Alinga Street and the lines outside venues were always so long," he said.

"Now, the the lines outside places are much smaller and the Alinga Street rank is almost always filled with cabs."

Duncan Beard, a self-confessed metal head and "high-functioning alcoholic" remembered a time when metal ruled Civic and spoke of Zorro's, Montezuma's, the Circus, and The Asylum.

"In the late 80s and early 90s metal was really big, so there were a lot of places that catered pretty heavily to metal there," he said.

"All around the Sydney building in the late 90s and early 2000s, there were just venues everywhere...it was really crazy.

"I don't know if live music has actually 'died', but the scenes definitely seem to be a lot smaller, and a lot more fractured."

Tatjana Clancy, editor of BMA Magazine and longtime Canberran remembers nights out at Toast, Firehouse, Heaven, Terminus, Gypsy and most of all Private Bin.

"I remember one night some out-of-towners asked us where the Private Bin was, and my girlfriend at the time just pointed towards an actual rubbish bin, because that's what we thought of it at the time," she said.

"But yeah the Private Bin was massive; it was a huge, huge deal."

- with Gus McCubbing