All of us benefit when New York’s cultural institutions exercise their powers of persuasion.

At a fund-raising luncheon Wednesday at the New York Public Library, which raised $383,000 for the library, the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick, recounted a visit to his office by the president of the library, Paul LeClerc, during which Mr. LeClerc asked him to serve on the library’s board of trustees.

Mr. Remnick explained he couldn’t offer a lot of financial support, but Mr. LeClerc assured him that his only role as a trustee would be to serve as toastmaster general of the library if Calvin Trillin couldn’t make it.

Mr. Remnick did just that. Mr. Trillin was present, but took on another role, joining other humor writers to do readings of their work.

Later that same night, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Karen Brooks Hopkins, took to the stage before a performance of Paul Simon’s “Under African Skies,” to explain how she and the artistic director, Joe Melillo, convinced Mr. Simon to do a month-long celebration of his musical career at BAM.

“Each year we’ve made an annual pilgrimage,” Ms. Hopkins said, explaining that two factors this fall had helped get them to “yes”: First, patrons Charles and Valerie Diker gave financial support to encourage the institution to pursue programming in popular music. “Second: We wore Paul down,” Ms. Hopkins said.

Mr. Simon, for his part, showed no resistance.

“They’ve been wonderful to work with,” Mr. Simon said at the postperformance supper for 1,000 on a gala night that raised $900,000. “It was probably the only place I could do all this. BAM is a great institution.”

agordon@nysun.com