He and Yoko have been living in New York since August 13, 1971, a few weeks after George’s Madison Square Garden event, on six-month B-2 tourist visas issued by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service to “Mr. and Mrs. John W. Lennon,” who are classified as “visitors for pleasure.”

Despite the short-term visas, their intent has always been to stay.

“Yoko and I were forever coming and going to New York, so finally we decided it would be cheaper and more functional to actually live here…so that’s what we did!” John tells reporters.

Yet there’s also a more painful, personal reason. Although Yoko has been given custody of her daughter, Kyoko, after a series of legal battles, her ex-husband Tony Cox has repeatedly absconded with the eight-year-old girl.

As best as John can determine, “Tony’s attitude was, ‘You can have my wife, but you can’t have my child.’”

And now Yoko and John cannot find Kyoko or Tony anywhere.

The most reliable information they have is that Cox may have taken Kyoko to America, and therefore it makes sense for Yoko and John to base themselves somewhere in the United States.

Besides, John has been wanting to move to New York anyway. After all, “We love it, and it’s the center of our world,” John says of the city. “America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself. New York is at my speed.” He also feels a kinship to New Yorkers’ brusqueness. “They’re like me…they don’t believe in wasting time.”

Yoko agrees. “John has a New York temperament in his work. Liverpool is very much like New York, for an English city.”

John credits Yoko, who lived in New York during her teens and twenties, with selling him on it. “She made me walk around the streets and parks and squares and examine every nook and cranny.”

They both appreciate the “unbelievably creative atmosphere” and diversity of the city, where their interracial marriage doesn’t stand out as much as it does in England.

“Everywhere’s somewhere, and everywhere’s the same, really, and wherever you are is where it’s at,” John muses. “But it’s more so in New York. It does have sugar on it, and I’ve got a sweet tooth.”

*  *  *

John and Yoko encounter the kind of creativity they particularly enjoy while taking a Sunday walk in Washington Square Park.

“I’m proud to be a New York hippie!” they hear a raspy-voiced street singer declare. It’s artist and activist David Peel, staging his weekly “happening.”

Immediately charmed, John says, “We started singing with him in the street. And we got moved on by the police, and it was all very wonderful. He was such a great guy, you know.”

Although Peel “can’t sing, or he can’t really play,” John admits, it doesn’t dampen the former Beatle’s enthusiasm. “Picasso spent 40 years trying to get as simple as that.”