2. Postcrypt Coffee House at Columbia
St. Paul’s Chapel of Columbia University is home to one of Morningside Heights‘ most unique places to get your caffeine fix. Hidden away in the chapel’s basement is the Postcrypt Coffeehouse, a music venue that has been “folkin’ around since 1964,” according to its website. The unique coffee venue was created by Reverend John Cannon, who was a campus chaplain at Columbia during that time, and a woman named Dotty Janke. A storage room in the basement of the chapel (which is filled with Guastavino tiling) was cleaned out and decorated. Dotty designed and constructed a mosaic bar to serve coffee and other refreshments, and the tables and chairs were found in the restaurant district of the Bowery.
Postcrypt Coffeehouse features a variety of up-and-coming folk and acoustic acts, as well as hot drinks. Postcrypt hosts acoustic acts every Friday and Saturday as well as a monthly open mic night. The venue is often crowded, so get there early if you plan on going to a show! According to the Postcrypt website, “John chose the name for the new hangout from an important work of one of his favorite philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript. John abbreviated the first two words as “C.U.” (also a common abbreviation for Columbia University), and changed the spelling of the third word to Postcrypt to reflect the location of the coffeehouse in the “crypt” of the church.” Much of the original decor still remains. The coffee shop closes for the summer.
