Last Thursday I went on a self-guided walking tour of all the famous places the Beatles visited on their first trip to NYC. It was A LOT of walking but lots of fun.Weird how most of those places look dramatically different, though most of them are non-existent now.
Like Cafe La Fortuna, John Lennon's favorite hangout in the late 70's through 1980.It was my first stop on the tour, around the block from the Dakota on 71st street.It was really surreal just walking down that block.All the brownstone apartment's line the streets as if they haven't changed since 1980.Just to walk down the block staring at these buildings, seeing what he must have seen every time he walked the half-block to the Cafe.It was just a really cool moment. Once I got to the site of the cafe (I knew beforehand that it has since been closed) I noticed that it is now nothing but a hardware store. Really sad. I went inside just to say I've been inside. Naturally it looks like your typical hardware joint.No trace of anything that would give away the fact that this place was where John Lennon used to spend a significant amount of his time, sitting at his favorite table, sipping cappuccinos while talking incessantly about whatever was on his mind to whomever would listen.That's how I like to think of him.
If he were here today I think that's what he would be doing.I also think that if he were here he'd be royally pissed that a hardware store of all things replaced his favorite hangout. :)
After visiting the Dakota for a bit, It was onto the infamous Plaza hotel,which meant I had to walk through the park to get to it on Central Park South. On the way there, completely and totally unexpectedly, I stumbled on what I have always wanted to find in Central Park but never did until that day.The bandshell from the John Lennon's Mind Games video!
John in the bandshell
My picture of the bandshell
Well, I thought it was cool. It was good to finally know it still exists. I still have hope that I will find that dang Balto statue that's also in Central Park. I WILL find it one day! Alrighty, back to the story at hand...
I finally got to the Plaza after some more walking, only to find that Carnegie Hall is only a stone's throw away. Another interesting fact I never knew.It's amazing how you can live in New York your whole life and never really know things like that.So here we went to Carnegie Hall, the Beatles first New York City concert.
Rumor (or truth?) has it that the same night the Beatles performed there in 1964,the promoter of the Carnegie Hall show made an offer to Brian Epstein for the Beatle to perform at Madison Square Garden.Brian declined, saying that he wanted to save the Garden show "for next time". Sadly there was never a "next time" but hey I'm not complainin'...if they had played there then the walking tour would have continued from 58th - 34th st!! Quite a walk.
After Carnegie Hall, the next stop was the infamous Ed Sullivan theater. A place SO significant in the Beatles career.... a place I've been so a MILLION times since I was a kid, yet was never aware of the historical ground on which it rests.As you know it's now the site of the David Letterman show.Don't think I'll ever associate that building with him anymore though.Whenever I pass it I hear Ed Sullivan's voice in my head,like the very first time he introduced the Beatles as the "youngsters from Liverpool". Yeah, that's what I think of.
Last stop on the tour was a newfound discovery.It was a place called the "Peppermint Lounge" and I caught the name of the club after watching the Beatles first visit to the U.S movie.After doing some research, I found out it was a pretty famous club in the 1960's.Apparently the "twist" was invented there. Pretty cool stuff.This was also where the Beatles went one night after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.Sadly this place no longer exists either.After becoming a Gay club, and then another dance club, it shut down in the 1980's and is currently some type of restaurant with a parking garage.A lot of the buildings on that block in particular look pretty brand new.But hey, that didn't stop me from taking a picture.
After all, it's the ground that it's standing on that counts haha. I once saw a picture of John leaving the club with Cynthia that night. I can't remember for the life of me where I found it though.Oh well...
That concluded the tour.And that was Thursday for ya.
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