The piece of land in Central Park that today is known as the Strawberry Fields Memorial was inaugurated in John Lennon's memory on October 9, 1985, on what would have been his 45th birthday. It is located right in front of the Dakota Apartment Building, which was the singer-songwriter's residence until his murder in 1980. The project's chief financier was Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and it was designed by landscape artist Bruce Kelly. The memorial consists of a triangular meadow with paths merging at a circular mosaic of inlaid stones bearing the word "Imagine," in reference to the song Lennon wrote after the Beatles had broken up. Surrounding the mosaic's Portuguese style pavement are winding benches bearing the names of other individuals involved in the creation of the memorial.
"Let me take you down
Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields Forever."
Everyone will recognize these lyrics. They begin one of the most popular Beatles' songs and one of the most famous psychedelic rock and roll songs of all time, "Strawberry Fields Forever." It was written by John Lennon at the end of 1966 and released as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane" in February 1967. The title alludes to the Strawberry Field Salvation Army children's home in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton, in whose garden John Lennon used to play as a child. At that time he was living with his mother's sister Mimi Smith, who had been given official care of John due to his mother's neglect. The song went on to become a world hit and today is ranked number three on the Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the one hundred greatest Beatles Songs and seventy-six on the magazine's list of the five hundred greatest songs of all time.
Today musicians of all ages gather around the mosaic and pay their tributes to the great singer. Sometimes their jam sessions become real concerts, which attract enormous groups of tourists flocking the memorial to lay flowers on the Imagine mosaic. Lennon fans surely experience a double sense of nostalgia when coming to the memorial: not only do they reminisce about Lennon's music and personality, but by recalling the song "Strawberry Fields Forever," they feel Lennon's own dreamy longing for his boyhood days when he played in the gardens of the children's home.