Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Annex exhibit opens May 12, 2009
Yoko Ono and Jim Henke meet the press
By Jeff Slate
New York, May 11, 2009 – Yoko Ono choked up visibly when recalling her late husband John Lennon and their time in New York City at the opening of the exhibit on his time here that opens tomorrow at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Annex in SoHo.
“John loved New York City,” Ono said. “Because to him, this was the center of the universe.”
The exhibit, which opens to the public tomorrow after a gala tonight that Ono, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and actor Tom Hanks are all expected to attend, celebrates the period from 1971 when Lennon and Ono moved into a small Bank Street apartment and joined the Greenwich Village political scene until 1980 when Lennon was shot dead in front of the couple’s Dakota apartment building. It was a time that photographer and Lennon friend Bob Gruen recalled fondly.
“I’m glad this exhibit exists, because it will show just how productive John was during his solo years here in New York. When people think of John in the 70’s they usually think of some drunken time in Los Angeles. But John made some great records in the 70’s; most of them in New York. “Sometime In New York City” is a great record. It’s overlooked.”
Gruen beamed while talking about Lennon while he toured the exhibit and recalled the times they spent in New York together. When I asked him what his quintessential Lennon/New York City moment was, he didn’t hesitate: “The trip to the Statue of Liberty,” he said, referring to the iconic photograph that greets visitors as they enter the exhibit and its all-white carpeted floor. “John and I took the ferry, just like any other tourists. It was really cool. There were about 40 German kids – students – and they started screaming like it was Beatlemania when they recognized John. But he calmed them down and signed autographs for them all and then we went on our way. It was a great day.”
That photo, and hundreds more of Lennon’s time in New York (many by Gruen, in fact), adorn the walls, while Lennon’s piano – complete with multiple cigarette burns – many of his original lyric sheets and production notes and his clothes, including his infamous “New York City” t-shirt and green army surplus shirt, sit behind glass while visitors listen through headsets to a guided tour of the exhibit featuring Lennon’s voice and music and the audio for 4 large video projections.
But the most arresting part of the exhibit comes near the end. A large poster of the cover of Ono’s “Season Of Glass” album cover depicting the blood-stained glasses Lennon was wearing when he was killed (with a smaller photo of her actually snapping that image) and the headline “932,000 people have been killed with handguns since John Lennon was killed”, followed by the bag Ono received from the morgue with Lennon’s personal effects not long after his death. On a card next to the bag Ono writes “John was the ‘King of the World’ but he came back to me in a brown paper bag.” An open petition that visitors touring the exhibit can sign follows the part of the exhibit featuring the poster and the bag of effects. It will be presented to President Obama in the hope that he will affect more stringent gun laws.
“That’s the part of the exhibit that really struck me,” said Mark Lapidos, the founder of the Fest For Beatles Fans (formerly BeatlesFest). “It’s amazing and saddening. John is gone. I hope it makes people think.”
But at the very end, Ono has placed one of her trademark mischievous art installation pieces. It’s a simple white phone that she says she will call “when I think of it.” She will talk to whomever picks up. After all the joy and sadness of the exhibit, you have to think Lennon would have loved that part the best.
The exhibit may be small, but it packs a punch and humanizes Lennon and what we lost nearly 29 years ago with his death.
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