John Lennon Memorial in Central Park, New York City, NY

By Melissa Jacobson

While Liverpool is John Lennon’s home town, New York is the city in which he chose to live, and the city in which he was assassinated. The two main points of interest for John Lennon fans in New York are the Dakota apartment building, where Lennon lived and was shot, and the "Strawberry Fields" memorial in Central Park. A mosaic style, in ground sculpture, Lennon’s memorial in Central Park reads “Imagine”. Kruse provides a history and description of the memorial site

"The memorial was dedicated by Mayor Koch on 9 October 1985, John Lennon's birthday. Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, later donated US$1 million to the Central Park Conservancy to re-landscape and maintain the 2.5-acre tear-drop-shaped park landscape" (Kruse, 2003).

Sources

Elliott, A (1998). Celebrity and Political Psychology: Remembering Lennon. International Society of Political Psychology. Political Psychology, 19 (4). pp. 833-852.

Kruse, R (2003). Imagining Strawberry Fields as a Place of Pilgrimage. The Royal Geographical Society . Blackwell Publishing. 35 (2). pp. 154-162.