The Gaslight Cafe

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.

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."