Strawberry Fields, John Lennon's Memorial in Central Park

Strawberry Fields is John Lennon's memorial in Central Park, New York. It is a garden just inside the West 72nd Street entrance, across the street from the Dakota, where Lennon lived and was shot in 1980. Bruce Kelly designed it with Yoko Ono and the Central Park Conservancy. At its centre is the black-and-white Imagine mosaic, a gift from Naples.

A garden, not a statue

If you're searching for a John Lennon statue in Central Park, there isn't one. Strawberry Fields is a planted landscape of paths, lawns and woodland, and the object people photograph is a round mosaic set into the path, reading "Imagine".

That was Yoko Ono's choice. In an open letter about the memorial she wrote that Lennon would have been prouder of a place named after his song than of a statue or monument. The Central Park Conservancy describes the result as a living landscape that changes as it grows. It also runs the area as a Quiet Zone.

The name comes from Lennon's 1967 song "Strawberry Fields Forever". The song in turn took its name from Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children's home in Woolton, Liverpool. The two places differ by one letter and sit an ocean apart.

From the shooting to the dedication

Lennon was shot in the entrance of the Dakota, 1 West 72nd Street, on 8 December 1980. The memorial's mosaic is about 130 m from the building, going by OpenStreetMap coordinates.

• 26 March 1981: the City Council voted to name this part of the park Strawberry Fields, according to Imagine Peace.
• 16 April 1981: Mayor Ed Koch signed the naming into law.
• 22 March 1984: ground was broken.
• 9 October 1985: the memorial was dedicated. That day would have been Lennon's 45th birthday and was Sean Lennon's 10th. Ono, Sean and Koch attended.
• 1989: Kelly's design received a Merit Award in Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
• 2007: the mosaic sank because its foundation was not deep enough, according to Wikipedia's account, which cites contemporary New York press.

Ono paid for most of it. Sources agree she gave about US$1 million. Imagine Peace, her own project site, breaks that into $500,000 for the redesign and $350,000 for an endowment to maintain the garden, and says the city spent $650,000 on construction. Ultimate Classic Rock instead describes an even split between landscaping and the endowment.

Plants sent by other countries

Ono wrote to governments asking for plants, rocks or stones from their countries, so that the garden would gather the world in one field. Imagine Peace names some of what arrived: dogwoods from Monaco, river birches from the Soviet Union, maples from Canada and daffodil bulbs from the Netherlands. The Cultural Landscape Foundation adds that plants from Israel and Jordan were planted side by side.

Imagine Peace lists 150 trees, 5,000 shrubs, 20,000 perennials and 25,000 strawberry plants. Wikipedia mentions three dawn redwoods, a species that can reach about 118 ft within a hundred years.

A plaque on a rock about 50 m from the mosaic lists the nations and credits Ono.

Where the published figures disagree

Different sources give different numbers, and we haven't found a way to settle them, so here they are side by side.

The acreage gap may come from measuring the memorial itself or the wider area that was restored. None of these sources says so, though.

The Imagine mosaic

The mosaic was a gift from the city of Naples and was made by Neapolitan craftsmen. The Cultural Landscape Foundation gives it as about ten feet across and says its black-and-white pattern draws on Roman mosaics from Pompeii. Benches ring the circle, and many of them are endowed in memory of individual people.

For 19 years a performance artist named Gary dos Santos, known as the "Mayor of Strawberry Fields", laid flower designs on the mosaic. He died in November 2013, aged 49. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, people held candlelight vigils around the circle.

When people gather

The two dates that bring crowds are 9 October, Lennon's birthday, and 8 December, the anniversary of his death. People sing at the mosaic on both days. Musicians also play informally on weekends, and by 2016 they had worked out a code of conduct among themselves. The Conservancy lists no restrooms at Strawberry Fields.

The nearest subway stop, according to NYC Parks, is 72 St on the B and C lines, at Central Park West. From there, enter the park at West 72nd Street.

Is this where Lennon is buried?

No. Lennon has no grave. He was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, and the ashes went to Yoko Ono. You'll often read that she scattered them here, but we found no statement from her or the family that confirms it. Our page on John Lennon's grave traces where that story comes from.

The knotted gun connection

The United Nations and the Non-Violence Project Foundation both say that Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd's knotted-revolver sculpture, made after Lennon's murder, was first placed at Strawberry Fields. Neither gives a date, and no source on the memorial's own history mentions it. The bronze now stands at UN Headquarters, about 2.9 km from the mosaic in a straight line.