Thirty years’ ago John Lennon died outside the Dakota co-op where he lived with Yoko Ono and his son, Sean.  They were my neighbors, almost, at that time; I lived on the Upper West Side within walking distance of the Dakota apartment building (named when it was built in the 19^th century so far out on New York City's outskirts). 

You will see, and read, many tributes to Lennon.  A recent PBS special addressed the new York City years, and talked about John’s delight in just being a New Yorker.  I saw them, John and Yoko, a couple times, round and about, and these decades later it did my heart good to hear him talk in that documentary about a little Broadway boutique that he frequented, which I did, too.

I first saw John and Yoko when a large protest march ended somewhere by Central Park, and Yoko said “I think everybody should love everybody else,” and then they lead the crowd in singing, “All we are saying, is give peace a chance…”

It rained, I was cold and soaked to the skin, I was young, and I was so naïve that I searched out a New York City cop to tell him there was a poor homeless guy sleeping on a park bench because he didn’t have any place else to go.  He nodded, and thanked me for telling him.

I distinctly remember standing within a few feet of Yoko on a subway car; her face was somewhat hidden by her hat, but it was unmistakably her when she turned and looked at me, and exited at the stop closest to West 72^nd Street.

 As soon as word had gotten out that John Lennon had died, a vigil began on the sidewalks of Central Park West, outside the Dakota.  For days, the sidewalk and area were barricaded off for the mourners, with their candles and posters and flowers. 

I was walking home on a cold evening, and somewhat preoccupied.  In those more dangerous days in the City, one was always conscious of avoiding vulnerable areas – the park side of the street, darker side streets, lonely subway platforms; one walked close to the curb, so as not to be pulled into a sheltered doorway, and so on.  But the side of Central Park West where the Dakota loomed was crowded, and I walked along Central Park.  A young black man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt approached me, and asked what time it was.  I knew better, but I stopped to look at my watch, and in that instant he grabbed the lapels of my Burberry knock-off  trench coat and pulled me close to him.  I screamed at the top of my lungs, a blood-curdling scream, and scared and surprised both him and myself.  He snatched the necklace from my neck and ran into the park.  Two women joggers quickly ran up to me and asked if I was all right.

They walked me just across the street to where one of many police officers stood, watching the crowd singing Beatles songs.  I explained I had just been mugged, breathlessly outraged, and one officer offered to drive me through the Park in a squad in case I saw my assailant.  We drove around the Park for twenty minutes, and then he took me to the police station, since I said I wanted to press charges.  He nodded, just like the cop I had told about the homeless guy asleep on the park bench, and pulled out four books the size of Manhattan phone directories filled with mug shots of people charged with robbery or assault.  There were hundreds and hundreds of pages of pictures of young black men in hooded sweatshirts.  I turned two or three pages, then pushed the books aside, and said I would leave and go home.

There is no overriding moral.  Random acts of violence and kindness and beauty and fear happen in New York, and all parts of our world.  John Lennon died too young.  Mark Chapman was mentally ill.  Yoko and John sang about peace and understanding, and struggled in their personal lives, too.  We went to the same stores. We crossed paths. We lead small lives and large ones. His music continues to give us pleasure and brings us back to important moments in our lives, the way, perhaps, only music does.