"Gray matter is the new black of the hip social scene."

Since when did libraries become hot spots for dates? museums become sites of both learning and romance? Since imaginative thinkers began retooling their public programming. Cities' anchor institutions, reports the Washington Post, are quickly being re-discovered by young and old looking to meet someone new or try something different with a long-standing partner: "Thousands of young singles and couples are eschewing the perfunctory dinner and a movie for a growing circuit of late-night museum prowls, Oxford-style debates with pre-feud cocktail parties and book readings with cash bars and after-hour bands."

One such imaginative thinker is Paul Holdengraber, the Director of Public Programming / LIVE at the New York Public Library (and a featured speaker at CEOs for Cities' upcoming National Meeting on Leveraging Anchor Institutions for Urban Success).

"'Let's face it, there really is nothing more sensual than caressing someone's mind,' said Paul Holdengräber, who launched the library's live lecture series that is now a staple of New York's 'intellidating' scene. Two years ago, the average age at library lectures was 68. It is now 41 and falling, driven down partly by a new crop of cutting-edge guests including underground cartoonists Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb and director Jonathan Demme.

"'Our ears are a very sensitive place,' Holdengräber said, 'and lectures give our crowd not only something to listen to, but something to discuss all evening long. You say a lecture isn't romantic? I say but of course it is.'"

  

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