At the Vinyl Word, books and albums fuel new friendships

Making friends as an adult is hard, especially in a city of eight million strangers. But one man in New York found a surprisingly simple solution: a flier, a phone number, a record player and a book club.

When you hear book club, you probably picture a quiet living room, a bottle of wine and a heated debate about character development.

What you probably don't picture is a packed music venue, strangers dancing together on a Tuesday night and an album playing front to back on vinyl.

Walk into Arlene's Grocery on a Tuesday night and you'll get a small but promising glimpse of a generation. People are laughing, singing and dancing. An hour earlier, most of them had never even met.

"Just getting a group of people together to listen to an album, front to back, talk about the artists, talk about the music," said George LoSasso.

That's the Vinyl Word.

Think book club, but instead of chapters, it's albums. And instead of strangers, the participants are friends who just haven't met.

LoSasso said it feels like people are looking for more authenticity.

And in an age where younger generations are seeking things out for TikTok or Instagram, attendees at The Vinyl Word say there is a real movement to get back to physical spaces with each other.

"I just want to keep cultivating this community, this is like something I want to be able to look back on when I'm an old guy, and I'm like, you know, I used to be this cool thing," LoSasso said.