WPAT first went on the air in 1941, from studios at 7 Ellison Street in Paterson, next to studios at 1060 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey, later two locations in Paterson, studios in Midtown Manhattan, and last from studios at 1396 Broad Street in Clifton, New Jersey.

. For many years, the station (along with its FM counterpart) would broadcast a beautiful music format under the slogan "Easy 93". In 1951, WPAT's Gaslight Revue program debuted. It was a skilfully assembled montage of music pieces that would become widely imitated within the industry. Indeed, it was so popular that albums of its selections and segues were made and released. WPAT was the essence of a mellow sound and feel; the requirement for different programming between the AM and FM was met simply by repeating the previous week's AM programs in a slightly different order on FM.

Three announcers who worked at WPAT in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- Tom Gregory, Ed Ladd and Lou Steele -- went on to become staff announcers for New York television station WNEW-TV Channel 5, remaining there into the 1980s.

The WPAT stations were purchased by Capital Cities Communications in 1961. In 1985, Capital Cities announced that it would buy ABC. As a result of Federal Communications Commission regulations at the time, the company decided to sell WPAT AM&FM because ABC already owned WABC and WPLJ in New York City. The WPAT stations would be sold to Park Communications.

In the early 1990s both frequencies of WPAT evolved to an adult contemporary format. In addition, WPAT would start to offer programming different from those of its FM counterpart. This programming would include sporting events that would normally be on WFAN whenever WFAN was carrying another event, public affairs shows, Broadway shows, and Sunday mass.

In January 1996, WPAT-FM would be sold to SBS, and would switch to a Spanish-language adult contemporary format. Around the same time, WPAT would be sold to Heftel Broadcasting (now Univisión Radio), and would switch to a Mexican music format on March 26. Eventually, the station would start adding ethnic and paid programming, and in 1997, the station would become all-Korean. By the next year, the station's ownership would change again when its current owners, Multicultural Broadcasting, would buy the station in exchange for WNWK. (WNWK subsequently would become WCAA, then in 2009 would switch frequencies with WQXR, New York. It is now known as WXNY and broadcasts at 96.3 FM.) The new owners of WPAT would later switch the station to its current paid ethnic programming format. Currently WPAT is the station that broadcasts Colombia's syndicated radio show La W every morning, Monday through Friday, which features personality Julio Sanchez Cristo.