Last night (on what would have been his 68th birthday), the Openhouse Gallery in SoHo opened their exhibit "Imagine Peace," displaying over 100 of John Lennon's drawings. The installation will be around through the weekend, and it'll cost you $2 to get in, with the money going towards City Meals-on-Wheels. Featuring "Lennon’s characteristic drawings in hand-signed pieces and limited edition prints, as well as serigraphs, lithographs, copper etchings and aqua tints," some of the collection......

Mark David Chapman was just denied parole for a fifth time, and although nothing really stands out, CityRoom notes that with this hearing "some details that were not publicly discussed during Mr. Chapman’s previous attempts at obtaining parole" surfaced. In the interview he discussed his crime with the parole board, and noted of his shooting John Lennon: "I don't recall saying: Mr. Lennon. I think that was something that the press elaborated on; that did......

Following yesterday's news of Mark David Chapman's latest chance for parole coming up this week, The Daily News chimes in with some more from Yoko Ono. She has, naturally, long been against her husband's killer being released, for her family's safety, but has also stated that: "It's dangerous for him to come out. Not only for us, but for himself. There are so many people out there who dislike him. It's safer for him to......

The Daily News takes a look at Mark David Chapman's time behind bars at New York's Attica Correctional Facility; the man who killed John Lennon is up for parole for a fifth time this week. In 2000, Yoko Ono wrote a letter to the parole board, referring to Chapman only as "the subject" and asking that he not be released because "With his one act of violence in those few seconds, [he] managed to change......

Posthumously joining an elite circle that includes Jerry Garcia, Stephen Colbert and Phish, ex-Beatle John Lennon has now been honored with his own Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor: Imagine Whirled Peace. Guest of a Guest recites the ingredients: a caramel and sweet cream whirl with toffee and chocolate-covered peace signs. Reportedly the company worked with the estate of Lennon and "the promotion also includes a recreation of the 'Bed-In' staged by John Lennon and......

"Give Peace a Chance" is apparently no longer the tune surrounding Central Park's Strawberry Fields, after a stroller mishap led to a man getting slashed. Yesterday evening, a man accidentally bumped into a stroller being pushed by a man and a woman near the park at 72nd St. and Central Park West. Foregoing the usual, "Excuse me," and "Good evening" of the average spring constitutional, the stroller bumper and the child's pushers got into a......

Put it this way: Jared Leto should stay focused on his music career. It would be a shame if his acting aspirations distracted him from his totally boss band, 30 Seconds to Mars. Though one can see how he’d have a hard time turning down the role of Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s murderer. After all, he’s a perfect fit for the role: both Leto and Chapman are unstable, grandiose footnotes whose insecurities drive......

Yoko Ono is not going to be too pleased with this: it turns out John Lennon was quite happy during his infamous "Lost Weekend" period. The "weekend," which lasted 18 months (during 1973-75), was a separation from Ono, where he spent nearly two years with the couple's one-time employee May Pang (in both LA and NYC). It has long been said that he was depressed during this time, but if Pang's new book of photographs,......

After news spread that Upper West Side institution Cafe La Fortuna would close today, many people came by to bid farewell. The restaurant was packed last night and this morning and afternoon, as people enjoyed the sandwiches, Italian coffee drinks and opera music one last time, lamenting the closing of another standby. One woman arrived with a bouquet of flowers and a card for the staff. Owner Vincent Urwand explained that the West 71st......

It would a bit too simplistic to blame the impending closure of La Fortuna, the Upper West Side café that first opened in 1976, entirely on the skyrocketing rents of a turbo-gentrifying neighborhood. While the ever rising rental tide was certainly a factor – the building was taken over by a real-estate group after the previous landlord died – three years still remained on the lease. According to amNY, the closure has more to do......

EVENT: For book lovers and the broken hearted, head over to the Knitting Factory after work for the book release party for "How Not to Date." The series of vignettes will make you feel better as they focus on nightmare dates, relationships and every sordid detail in between. Author Judy McGuire says, "There'll be snacks, a cash bar with happy hour prices, book giveaways, and some surprises (which may or may not include interpretive......

Yoko Ono isn't showing an ounce of compassion for heavy metal musician (and Suicide Girl) Lennon Murphy, who was named after the late Beatle by her mother. Ono is now suing the musician for "tarnishment" of John Lennon's name, "fraudulently" registering the name as a trademark and intentionally exploiting it. Lennon has been using her first name professionally since 1997, and in 2000 (when signed with Arista Records) she cleared the use of the name......

Last year two biopics about John Lennon's assassination made the festival rounds, and are now poised to hit theaters in 2008. One, titled Chapter 27, stars Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman and an actor named Mark Lindsay Chapman portraying John Lennon. While it may be an accurate casting to have Leto playing someone who kills music, his involvement in the film will likely have us choosing the second biopic, The Killing of John Lennon......

Christie's is finally getting on the overpriced vintage concert t-shirt bandwagon. Today they bring 30 rock tees to the block as part of their Rock and Pop Memorabilia auction, and all are expected to sell for up to $4,500 each. Remember when Stella McCartney was creating overpriced rock tees for Chloe? We sort of blame her for this."The fact that these T-shirts exist in such pristine condition is remarkable because most people didn't keep these......

The set for director Ivo van Hove’s sensational but frustrating production of Molière's The Misanthrope tingles with exquisite cleanliness – though not for long. As the play beings, we gaze into a sleek shiny box that’s nondescript but not devoid of style: it seems just a few minimalist furnishings away from a feature in the Times’s Home & Garden section. The VIPs who chatter, prevaricate and flatter their way through the room are the......

In June of 1972 (just months after his divorce) Elvis Presley performed a 3-day run at Madison Square Garden. These shows were the first full concerts he put on in NYC, and the first since he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. Excitement was in the air, and Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Art Garfunkel, all of Led Zepplin and half of The Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison) were in the audience. Another......

Tom Snyder died today, at age 71, after losing a long battle with leukemia. There are many videos with footage of his long career, because just about everyone wanted to talk to him (especially on "The Tomorrow Show" which aired after Johnny Carson in the '70s and '80s). Throughout his career he interviewed Kiss, argued with Howard Stern and Cosell...and if you watch this video you'll see plenty of others who found themselves sitting across......

Recently Rolling Stone took a 60-second tour of The Beatles' New York, with a little help from Google’s Street Maps feature. First up on their tour: John and Yoko’s first NYC apartment at 105 Bank Street (where they lived during the release of this album). Here's a closer look at the property, which is also shown at right. In 1971, after a long stay at the St. Regis Hotel, John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved......

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing? 99. December 11, 1965: The Velvet Underground play their first show, which was actually at a high school dance in Summit, New Jersey. The following year however, the Velvets became the house band at Warhol's Factory. 96. December 14, 1977: "Saturday Night Fever debuts in......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a homicide on Sands St. in Brooklyn, a water rescue off City Island in the Bronx, and a stabbing at 146th St. in Queens. The national press is focusing on possible candidates Hillary, Rudy, and Bloomy, and catches on to the obvious fact that has been evident for the last century in politics: the rest of the U.S. hates New Yorkers and especially hates New York City politicians. If......

It isn't very often a Beatle takes a small stage for an intimate show in New York. Last night, this very thing happened...and lucky for those in attendance, that Beatle wasn't Ringo. Paul McCartney played to a crowd of about 700 fans, press folk and a few celebs (Elijah Wood and Whoopi Goldberg) at the Highline Ballroom. While Macca was there promoting his new album, Memory Almost Full, his set list was full of oldies......

"Some Time in New York City" was released in 1972 as John Lennon's third post-Beatles album (and his fifth with Yoko Ono). Critically and commercially the album didn't do well, especially compared to Lennon's previous albums. "Imagine" had just come out in the 1971, and comparatively this one was brash, loud and more reflective of his political and new geographical surroundings at the time, in Greenwich Village. As documented in The US vs John......

Rolling Stone has officially turned 40! We can't honestly say it's aged very well, but it sure is partying like it's 1967. Last year, at 39 and issue number 1000, Jann Wenner wrote, "The fact that we had John Lennon on the very first cover [pictured] was serendipity. We had a publicity photo from his role in the anti-war film How I Won the War. That photo, we now realize, speaks so clearly to the......

Comedian John Roy has been all over TV and the country. He's won Star Search 2003, was featured in season 4 of Last Comic Standing, has been on Comics Unleashed and Premium Blend, and now he's coming to the Comic Strip on March 20th and 21st. What's it like to grow up with a psychotherapist and former Jesuit as parents? It's kind of strange because when you're a kid, you don't know that there are......

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Family Guy (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., WNYW 5) Peter helps Bill Clinton fix a flat tire and wackiness ensues. Live at Five/News 4 You (Monday, 4:57 p.m./5:30 p.m., WNBC 4) The post Sue Simmons era of Live at Five begins Monday when David Ushery and Lynda Baquero anchor the 5p.m. newscast and Perri Peltz anchors the new features and consumer news based News 4 You at 5:30 p.m.......

Remember that smart-alecky retort, “It’s a free country”? That's the brazen spirit behind Radical Living Papers: A history of the free, alternative, counter-culture and underground press, 1965-75. Situated in the Passerby bar, it no doubt will inspire many fervent debates about freedom of the press. The rag-tag collection of zines promotes everything under the sun: politics, revolutions, evolutions of the planets, freak-outs, love-ins, support of green politics, gay liberation, power to the people, the peace......

Yesterday news came out that Yoko Ono's driver, Koral Karsan (pictured), tried to extort $2M from her. Today the story unfolds, as he was brought in for questioning. Apparently Karsan (who has been her driver for six years) dropped off a letter and a photograph of Ono in nightclothes (Ono says "lingerie" and the Daily News says "pajamas") to her New York apartment. In the note he claimed to have secretly photographed her and made......

Peter Boyle, who you may know as the father ("Frank") on "Everybody Loves Raymond", died last night at the age of 71, in Manhattan. Boyle wasn't always an actor, he pursued acting only after he left the life of a monk. His successful career includes his roles in films like The Candidate, Young Frankenstein, Monster's Ball and Where the Buffalo Roam (a portrait of Hunter S. Thompson, in which he played Carl Lazlo, Esq.). While......

Today many will gather at Strawberry Fields in Central Park to hold vigil on the anniversary of the death of John Lennon, which took place 26 years ago today. The NYCLU has asked the city to lift the ban on music at Strawberry Fields for every day of the year, not just twice a year for Lennon vigils. Yoko Ono, who says she is still struggling to forgive the Mark Chapman, recently made a call......

The following is an account of what someone purchased four years ago at a stoop sale in Chelsea, for 75 cents: "In September of 2002 Warren Hill of Montreal Canada was perusing a box of records at a Chelsea, New York street sale when he happened upon a brittle 12" piece of acetone-covered aluminum with the words "Velvet Underground. 4-25-66. Att N. Dolph" written on the label. He purchased the three records for 75......