There was a nice write-up in Sunday’s Times on the Rapture Cafe, a little oasis of arty, old-skool East Village ethos. Owned by Joe Birdsong and managed by Brian Butterick (aka drag performer Hattie Hathaway), the coffee shop-slash-bookstore-slash-performance space has become a club house of sorts for the denizens of downtown, those who haven’t been squeezed out by high rents and gentrification, that is.

It is a crowd that, in years past, socialized mostly in loud smoky black-box clubs below 14th Street.

These days, this group is turning to Rapture’s kinder, gentler morning-until-midnight atmosphere, with its wheat-colored plaster walls, light wood bookshelves (stocked with everything from the latest Amy Sedaris book to magazines like Heeb and Mother Jones), pastry-stocked coffee bar and abundance of lighting from airy-looking Japanese lanterns.

You can read the piece here. Better yet, stop by and grab a cup of coffee. The Rapture Cafe is at 200 Avenue A (btwn. 12th/13th).