The Gaslight Cafe

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The Gaslight Cafe was a coffee house located in the basement of 116 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, New York City

The Gaslight was originally a "basket house" where unpaid performers would pass around a basket at the end of each set. Opened in 1958 by John Mitchell..., the dark, steamy, subterranean Gaslight had showcased beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso but later became a folk club. Among those who performed at the Gaslight were Bob Dylan, Luke Faust, a five-string banjo player and singer who sang Appalachian ballads, Len Chandler, Hal Waters, John Wynn, who played gut-string guitar and sang folk songs in an operatic voice, Paul Clayton and Luke Askew 1964-1966 saw many early performances of Richie Havens, Jose Feliciano, Phil Ochs, Eric Anderson and Dave Van Ronk. The first public "electric" appearance of The Blues Project( with Danny Kalb) took place on the stage of the Gaslight.

The Gaslight was right next door to The Kettle of Fish, a bar where many performers hung out between sets. Some nights the bar was "locked" down to the public because a young "reclusive" singer and poet was in attendance... Bob Dylan.

In The Folk Music Encyclopedia, Kristin Baggelaar & Donald Milton say "The Gaslight was weird then because there were air shafts up to the apartments and the windows of the Gaslight would open into the air shafts, so when people would applaud, the neighbors would get disturbed and call the police. So then the audience couldn't applaud; they had to snap their fingers instead."