Originally an education-focused station, since the Columbia University protests of 1968, WKCR-FM has shifted its focus towards alternative musical programming, with an emphasis on jazz, classical, and hip-hop.

Following a decade of bureaucratic struggle against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Federal Communications Commission, it began transmitting from an antenna atop the World Trade Center in 1985.

[19] While setting the station up, the Radio Club engaged in illegal experimentation, exceeding FCC minimum power regulations for carrier current transmission.

[12] Under the name CURC, the station made its unofficial debut on December 31, 1940, with a broadcast of audio from a New Year's Eve party in John Jay Dining Hall.

[22] The FCC approved on April 5, and the first tests of the new station were carried out on May 14;[1] full-time programming did not begin until October 8[23] for New York's third noncommercial radio outlet.

[24] It used a ten‑watt transmitter that once belonged to Armstrong, which it installed on the roof of Philosophy Hall, as well as $25,000 worth of master control equipment donated by WMCA.

[25] Until the 1970s, the carrier current WKCR, focused largely on music broadcasting and restricted to campus, coexisted with WKCR‑FM, which covered the entire New York metropolitan area with a greater emphasis on education.

Members of the news department would travel to Washington, D.C. annually to interview political figures, while WKCR became the only station in the New York area to carry United Nations General Assembly meetings in full.

Station staff also tapped a New York City Police Department phone line that ran from a university telephone distribution panel to a command vehicle outside, and, on radios loaned from W2AEE, stalked frequencies known to be used by the NYPD when planning large operations.

Someone is playing "The Marseillaise"... WKCR coverage only stopped for a period of time on April 26, when the university ordered the station to suspend operations.

In a time when most Latin programming focused on older music and romantic ballads, it became one of the first stations in the United States to broadcast salsa.

[36] Page also organized a WKCR charity concert which was held on April 1, 1979, in Carnegie Hall, and featured Glass and Reich, in addition to John Cale, Leroy Jenkins, and Ursula Oppens.

During his time at WKCR, Seibert recorded and published live performances made at the station; notable albums that were recorded or edited at WKCR include Live in New York, featuring Mississippi Fred McDowell and Blues from the Apple, featuring Charles Walker and the New York City Blues Band.

The Columbia Daily Spectator reported on September 14, 1976, that negotiations with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey were in their final stages, and that the move was projected to take place before January 1, 1977.

[42] In July 1977, The New York Times announced that WKCR would move by September 15 of that year, and would the first station to transmit from the World Trade Center.

[45] In January 1979, WKCR received a $43,912 grant from the Office of Education of the United States Department of Health and Human Services to aid in its move to the Twin Towers.

By then, the World Trade Center antenna had already been installed, though the station's FCC permit to finally move had recently expired while it was dealing with a hum which had interfered with broadcasts for the past three weeks.

[48] The station began transmitting from the Twin Towers for the first time at 9:30 a.m. on July 20, though the broadcast was shut down after 45 minutes by the FCC, forcing WKCR to repair and continue to use its old antenna.

[49] In July 1982, the FCC fined the station $8,000 for violations of federal equipment and licensing regulation, which were discovered during an allegedly routine and random inspection.

Its range was severely reduced, its signal barely reaching past a 20-mile radius until 2003, when the station was able to set up a new antenna at 4 Times Square, where it remains today.

[56] WKCR was one of four FM radio stations that transmitted from the World Trade Center at the time of its destruction, the others being WNYC-FM, WKTU, and WPAT-FM.

[57] For three weeks beginning on September 17, WKCR loaned its new studio in Lerner Hall to WNYC, which continued broadcasting over its AM adjunct but could not access its headquarters in the Manhattan Municipal Building due to the attacks.

Jerry Newman, a 23‑year‑old student, had begun frequenting and recording performances at Minton's Playhouse, where Monk was the house pianist, in 1940 after being introduced by bassist and vocalist Duke Groner.

Four sets were recorded featuring Monk, Don Byas, Joe Guy, Kenny Clarke, and Helen Humes, and were rushed back to Columbia and played on CURC in the evening.

The New Yorker described Bird Flight as "plac[ing] a degree of attention on the music of the bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker that is so obsessive, so ardent and detailed, that Schaap frequently sounds like a mad Talmudic scholar who has decided that the laws of humankind reside not in the ancient Babylonian tractates but in alternate takes of 'Moose the Mooche' and 'Swedish Schnapps.'

" The red Naugahyde armchair for visitors in the WKCR studio is named the "Dizzy Gillespie chair", after the trumpeter sat there during an hours-long conversation with Schaap.

[35] Beginning in 1970, WKCR has held several jazz festivals a year, each one focusing on the presentation of the entirety of a single artist's recorded work, in addition to interviews and educational programming.

Monk, who by this point had become a recluse, called the station and instructed them to "tell the guy on the air, 'The piano ain't got no wrong notes' ", before hanging up.

[71] WKCR annually celebrates the birthdays of prominent jazz musicians, including Monk, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker, by playing the entire catalogue of the artist's work in one broadcast.

The interruption reportedly began with eerie screeches and was followed by silence, then by a woman reciting obituaries, including those of Frank Oppenheimer and several victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.