NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — To many in New York City, it seems like it was only yesterday, but Tuesday marks 40 years since the senseless murder of John Lennon.
As in all the years since his passing, fans visited Strawberry Fields and the Imagine mosaic in Central Park near the Dakota to pay their respects.
A musician, who goes by the name of Sergeant Pepper, played Beatles tunes to bring comfort to the crowd that had gathered to pay tribute to Lennon, who was just 40 years old when he was gunned down in the entranceway to his Upper West Side apartment building.
"This gives solace in death," he told WCBS 880's Marla Diamond. "It's a day of remembrance and there's been a lot of death this year. A lot of families who are learning what it's like to lose someone special."
"We have this collective mourning and in a collective mourning there is room for beauty and joy, and perhaps if they come around today, if they can celebrate today, then they can translate that into their own lives as well," the musician said.
The gray skies matched the mood as visitors sat socially distanced around the mosaic or stopped to take a photo.
There were fewer visitors to the memorial amid the pandemic, but Glenn Fustenberg remembered what it was like in the days after he was killed.
"It's a pretty seminal moment in my life and I don't know, if we'll ever have that again. There was probably over 100,000 people and it was kind of a beautiful moment, and it's like you were in New York, which was a special place to be," he said.
One woman remembered the shock of Lennon's murder like it was yesterday.
"People told me, 'John Lennon was killed,' and I thought, ' Ha ha ha, you're kidding. Nobody would kill John Lennon.' And then I saw the newspaper, and wept uncontrollably," the Upper West Side resident said, adding that she felt drawn to the memorial on this anniversary.
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Larry Sokolski of the Upper East Side came to remember.
"It's a sad day," he said. "And actually with what's going on in the world with the pandemic it even makes it more of a stark day."
David Perry came with his wife from Boston.
"We all grew up with his music, it was beautiful," Perry said. "He had a big heart, a special person, I'm a litle sad that in America we still have gun violence."
The Imagine mosaic was covered in flowers, candles and pictures of John Lennon alongside a drawing of a gun with its barrel tied in a knot as people imagined what could have been if Lennon's life was not cut short by an assassin's bullet.
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