At Strawberry Fields, a Second Beatle Mourned

There was only one place in this city for a Beatles fan to be on Friday: Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

The outdoor memorial created by John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, after his shooting death in 1980 became a scene of peaceful remembrance as news spread that fellow band member George Harrison had died Thursday in Los Angeles.

Fans placed bouquets of sunflowers, green apples, Hindu inscriptions and even a battered old guitar on the circular tile mosaic that bears the inscription “Imagine,” one of Lennon’s most powerful and best-loved songs.

The green apples signified the Beatles’ record label, but the sunflowers, Eastern script and other talismans were in honor of the “quiet” guitar- and sitar-playing Harrison.

“Norwegian Wood” and other songs he put his stamp on wafted through the sycamores and maples at an impromptu park-bench jam session of guitarists, with scores of tourists and residents singing along.

“When my wife told me the news this morning, I burst into tears,” said Adam Perle, 52, one of those playing. “I was 11 when I first heard them, and they changed my life.”

Strawberry Fields is the site of a vigil every Dec. 8 commemorating Lennon’s murder at the nearby Dakota apartment building, where Ono still lives. The name was taken from a Lennon song, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” about a Salvation Army orphanage near his childhood home.

Jan Baker, 57, of Hampshire, England, headed to Strawberry Fields while in New York on vacation. “There’s only two of them left now,” she said. “When you’re almost 58 yourself, like he was, it comes home to you. But they loved life. They all had a very good time.”

Baker recalled how she raced to buy “Love Me Do” and every other song and album the Beatles produced. She said that as a teenager, she adored them because everything about them was wonderfully different--from their haircuts to their tunes.

“No one has really written as good a dance song since,” she said.

Baker’s daughter Sharon, 28, who flew in from San Diego, where she works at the University of California campus, shrugged her shoulders and agreed.

“I didn’t think it was cool when I was a kid and she played their music all the time, but when I reached my 20s and started listening, I realized I love the music,” she said.

Harrison was remembered by many as the spiritual Beatle who took his bandmates to see a renowned Indian yogi and who explored mysticism deeply.

“Oh, I loved his philosophy, of life and of our journey through life to death,” said Felicia Telsey, 46, an Upper West Side resident. “I was listening to ‘All Things Must Pass’ this morning. That’s his motto really.”

When she was 9, she said, Paul McCartney and Harrison were her favorite Beatles, “but when I got older and went to college, it was just George.”