Postcrypt Coffeehouse is an all-

acoustic music Acoustic music is music that solely or primarily uses instruments that produce sound through acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means. While all music was once acoustic, the retronym "acoustic music" appeared after the ad ...

venue in the basement of

St. Paul's Chapel St. Paul's Chapel is a chapel building of Trinity Church, an episcopal parish, located at 209 Broadway, between Fulton Street and Vesey Street, in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1766, it is the oldest surviving church building in Man ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, run completely by students. Founded in 1964, Postcrypt has hosted many up-and-coming folk musicians, including

Jeff Buckley Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scott Moorhead, was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by ...

Dar Williams Dorothy Snowden "Dar" Williams (born April 19, 1967) is an American pop folk singer-songwriter from Mount Kisco, New York. Hendrik Hertzberg of ''The New Yorker'' has described Williams as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters." She ...

Shawn Colvin Shawn Colvin (born Shawna Lee Colvin, January 10, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. While Colvin has been a solo recording artist for decades, she is best known for her 1998 Grammy Award-winning song " Sunny Came Home". Early ...

David Bromberg David Bromberg (born September 19, 1945) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. David Bromberg biographyat Billboard.com An eclectic artist, Bromberg plays bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock ...

, and Ani DiFranco. Additionally,

Suzanne Vega Suzanne Nadine Vega ( Peck; born July 11, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter best known for her folk-inspired music. Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. She came to prominence in the mid-1980s, releasing four singles that entered th ...

, a graduate of

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Col ...

, returns to Postcrypt each Spring to play one secret concert. The young folk singer

Anthony da Costa Anthony da Costa (born 1991 in Bronx, NY) is an American singer-songwriter based in Nashville, TN. He has been writing and performing original material since he was 13 years old. He names Ryan Adams,Peter Gerstenzang"They Know a Good Place When ...

performs there regularly, and

Mary Lee Kortes Mary Lee's Corvette is an American band led by Michigan-born singer-songwriter Mary Lee Kortes. The group has recorded five albums; four of which primarily feature songs written or co-written by Kortes. The band's third album, ''Blood on the Track ...

, of the band Mary Lee's Corvette, has played there along with her husband, the guitarist and producer

Eric Ambel Eric "Roscoe" Ambel (Born August 20, 1957) is a New York City–based guitarist and record producer, originally from Batavia, Illinois. He has worked with a wide range of artists including Nils Lofgren, The Brandos, Steve Earle, the Yayhoos, ...

. Postcrypt is one of the few free, all volunteer-run venues in New York. Its size is also notable: according to the fire code, it can legally only host 35 people at a time, giving the venue a very intimate feel, and making it possible to have music without any sort of amplification. The ''

AIA Guide to New York City The ''AIA Guide to New York City'' by Norval White, Elliot Willensky, and Fran Leadon is an extensive catalogue with descriptions, critique and photographs of significant and noteworthy architecture throughout the five boroughs of New York City ...

'' describes the Postcrypt Coffeehouse as "the most haunting performance space in the City", and "a great place to find yourself during a blackout".

History

The venue was established in 1964 with the help of the campus chaplain, Reverend John D. Cannon. Cannon and student Dotty Sutherland cleaned and redecorated a small storage room in the basement of the chapel, transforming it into Postcrypt. Despite popular conceptions, the Postcrypt location was never a "crypt," but rather a storage closet in the basement of the chapel; it takes its name from the Søren Kierkegaard book,

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments ''Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments'' ( da, Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler) is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is an attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of H ...

. This was then shortened to C.U. (the initials for Columbia University) Postcrypt to reflect the fact that the venue was in the basement of the chapel. Since its creation, Postcrypt Coffeehouse has been completely run by student volunteers. It is open each Friday and Saturday night during the

academic year An academic year or school year is a period of time which schools, colleges and universities use to measure a quantity of study. School holiday School holidays (also referred to as vacations, breaks, and recess) are the periods during which sc ...

from 8:30 pm– 11:30pm, featuring three artists who each play a 45-50 minute set. It is always free and open to the public. Postcrypt is supported by funding from the student government and their sales of coffee, baked goods, and a selection of beer. In a 2006 article about

Morningside Heights Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside H ...

, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote:

One thing you won't find anywhere else is the Postcrypt Coffeehouse, a musty hideaway tucked into the depths of the St. Paul's basement where singers from the accomplished to the totally disastrous perform Friday and Saturday nights. The tiny spot serves $1 coffee so awful they should refund your dollar if you finish it, but makes up for it with free popcorn.

Since that article, the staff of Postcrypt has tried to improve the quality of their coffee, using

fair trade Fair trade is an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and envir ...

and

organic Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product o ...

coffee as part of the effort to

go green Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks ...

. This effort has also included the institution of a "Bring Your Own Mug" policy: coffee and locally produced cider is offered at a 50% discount to patrons who bring their own mugs.

Troubles with the University

Postcrypt has faced its share of trouble with Columbia's administration: in 2001, it was nearly shut down because of fire code violations. Later, source of the low lighting has changed from candles to electric lights.

Folk Festival

On May 4, 2008, Postcrypt Coffeehouse hosted their first annual Folk Festival, an all-day event on Columbia's campus. All acts featured were completely by Columbia students. The second annual Folk Festival took place on April 26, 2009, and was cosponsored by the environmental group "Greenspiration," as the culmination of a week of environmentally themed events. It featured a mix of both student and professional performers, including

da Costa Costa (, , , , ), sometimes Costas, da Costa, Da Costa, or Dalla Costa, is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish surname. The surname spread throughout the world through colonization. It is also a surname chosen by Jews and other religious groups due ...

, The Salvation Band, Chuck E Costa, and the Columbia based band The Kitchen Cabinet. Postcrypt received a grant from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation to partially fund the event.

External links

Postcrypt Coffeehouse's Official WebsiteVideos of the First Annual Postcrypt Folk Festival on YouTube

References

{{coord, 40.80780, -73.96094, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-NY, display=title Music venues in Manhattan Coffeehouses and cafés in the United States Columbia University student organizations 1964 establishments in New York City