A Living Memorial: Strawberry Fields

Yoko Ono turned down the idea of a statue. When Central Park officials asked how she wanted to memorialize her husband, John Lennon, after his death, she told them there were already enough statues scattered through the park and asked instead for something living. The result is the teardrop shaped garden ahead, named Strawberry Fields after the Beatles song Lennon wrote, and dedicated on October ninth, nineteen eighty five, on what would have been his forty fifth birthday.

Ono worked with Bruce Kelly, the chief landscape architect for the Central Park Conservancy, on the design, and personally contributed well over a million dollars to build it and fund its upkeep for years afterward. She also invited nations from around the world to contribute plants and stones, turning the garden into something closer to an international peace garden than a typical park memorial, with a plaque nearby listing the countries that took part.

At the center of the garden is a black and white mosaic bearing a single word, Imagine, after Lennon's best known solo song. The mosaic itself was a gift from the city of Naples, Italy, laid in traditional Italian pavement style. It has needed repair work over the years, including after the ground beneath it began to sink, but it remains the spot where fans gather every December eighth, the anniversary of Lennon's death, to lay flowers and sing. The Dakota, where Lennon lived and died, sits just across the street from where you are now, within sight of the garden he is remembered in here.