Give New York a chance

John Lennon's apartment looked over Central Park...

Few 追放するs have been so 心にいだくd by a city as John Lennon was by New York. Certainly, 非，不，無 has ever left such a 遺産／遺物 of grief and 嘆く／悼むing in their 可決する・採択するd home.

Twenty-eight years after it happened, late one night on West 72nd Street, John's 暗殺 代表するs a scar on the city's memory.

Next week on December 8, the 周年記念日 of his death, （人が）群がるs will gather outside his former home, 持つ／拘留するing candles and softly 詠唱するing Beatles songs.

It is a sad reflection on our times that 悲劇 is as powerful a tourist-magnet as scenic beauty or history.

Certainly, thousands visit New York to see where John lived and died, as they do to 見解（をとる） the chasm where the World 貿易（する） 中心's Twin Towers once stood.

On Central Park West, John's last home - the Dakota apartment building - still towers in grim majesty with its frontage of 黒人／ボイコット アイロンをかける sea-serpents and flower urns, like some Victorian 保険 building 支援する in his native Liverpool.

There, on West 72nd, is the Gothic archway where that night in 1980 his limo fatally stopped beside the kerb.

There is the 石／投石する buttress where, his foul 使節団 遂行するd, 示す David Chapman waited for the police, reading J. D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye.

Lennon's 未亡人, Yoko Ono, still lives in the Dakota. During the four years I spent as his 伝記作家, I was 認めるd 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の 接近 to Yoko in the 広大な seventh-床に打ち倒す apartment she 株d with John, 行為／行うing long, taped conversations that will stay with me for ever.

Across the road is the westerly section of Central Park, 指名するd Strawberry Fields in homage to his Beatles 跡をつける, Strawberry Fields Forever.

To fill its two-and-a-half acres, Yoko received 工場／植物s and flowers from 121 countries, making it a truly international garden for peace.

Strawberry Fields has since become a place where New Yorkers gather, not only on December 8, but at 類似の moments of 外傷／ショック or grief such as after 9/11.

A 封鎖する away, on West 71st, is Caf? La Fortuna, the coffee shop where John had breakfast most mornings (giving the 嘘（をつく） to stories that during his 退職 he was a Howard Hughes-style recluse).

He was there, as usual, on the last morning of his life, his hair newly re- styled in a Fifties Teddy Boy look, appearing eerily as he had 20 years before when The Beatles were still playing seedy clubs in Merseyside and Hamburg.

But the city's memories are not all melancholy. From 早期に boyhood, when John would watch the transatlantic liners 始める，決める sail 負かす／撃墜する the River Mersey, New York was his dream 目的地.

And - until the last - it never failed him. 真っ先の の中で its Lennon souvenirs is perha ps the most memorable day in pop music history.

On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived in America for the first time, 飛行機で行くing into New York まっただ中に scenes of hysteria that made European Beatlemania seem muted.

People ice skate around a rink in Central Park に引き続いて the first 降雪 of the year...

The other major player that day was Manhattan's Plaza Hotel (designed by the same architect as the Dakota) where the Beatles sought 避難.

Years later, after settling just across the park, John 保持するd his affection for the Plaza, often dropping in for afternoon tea in its Palm 法廷，裁判所.

As he entered, the string orchestra would strike up with Yesterday, unaware it was one of the Beatle songs in which John had no 手渡す どれでも.

Today, 式のs, it has been 変えるd into multi-milliondollar apartments. But several other 中央の-town hotels have their own Lennon stories to tell - or, in some 事例／患者s, hush up.

There's the Warwick on Sixth Avenue, opposite the New York Hilton, where the Beatles had some of their earliest 遭遇（する）s with （頭が）ひょいと動く Dylan.

There's the St Regis on East 55th Street, where John and Yoko first settled when 事実上 driven out of Britain by ridicule and 人種差別主義者 乱用 in 1971.

Their four-控訴 コンビナート／複合体 on the 17th 床に打ち倒す 供給するd the 背景 to one of their avantgarde films which starred other VIP hotel guests such as Jack Palance and Fred Astaire as extras.

There's also the Pierre at 61st Street and Fifth Avenue, where John was later to 穴を開ける up during his 'lost 週末' apart from Yoko, and 令状 some of his 1974 album 塀で囲むs And 橋（渡しをする）s. For my 最近の visit to publicise the biography, I chose the v enerable Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue.

It was an 時折の haunt of John's while on benders with fellow musicians like Harry Nilsson and The Who's manic drummer Keith Moon.

Serious Lennon fans cannot omit a 巡礼の旅 to 105 Bank Street in the West Village, the apartment where he and Yoko lived before moving to the Dakota.

There, they used to 持つ／拘留する 法廷，裁判所, in bed, to political 過激なs such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. The Manhattan 記録，記録的な／記録するing studios where he made his 単独の albums have now all but 消えるd.

But it's rare not to find a sightseeing group at the 場所／位置 of the 記録，記録的な／記録する 工場／植物 on West 44th Street where he worked on the Imagine album. Above all, there is the former 攻撃する，衝突する Factory studio on West 48th where he made his last album 二塁打 Fantasy - and where he was at work on the night of his death, returning to the Dakota at that fateful moment to give his son, Sean, a goodnight kiss.

Rupert Brooke's famous poem speaks of 'some corner of a foreign field that is forever England'. So many corners of this foreign city will be forever John.

Travel Facts

Kuoni (01306 747008, kuoni.co.uk) 申し込む／申し出s three nights at the Waldorf-Astoria, 含むing a deluxe room and return flights with BA, from £676 pp, based on two 株ing (price for January 2009).

Lennon walking 小旅行するs, (212) 465 3331, nyc.com/events.