Tourists braved the cold on Tuesday afternoon to visit John Lennon landmarks on the eve of the anniversary of his death. Wednesday marks exactly 30 years since the Beatle was shot outside his apartment in New York City.

 

Fans stopped by Strawberry Fields in Central Park -- a landscaped section of ground dedicated to Lennon's memory. The memorial is emblazoned with a mosaic inscribed with the word "Imagine" -- the title of one of Lennon's most famous songs.

Norma, a tourist from the U.K., said The Beatles played a huge part in her life and that Lennon's death was a reminder to the world of inevitable mortality.

Tourist Norma said, "Perhaps for people growing up in the 60's and early 70's, it made you realize that immortality wasn't there and that people like that, who you thought was going to be around forever, suddenly got cut down in their prime. Loss of talent. Loss of future."

Born in Liverpool, England in 1940, Lennon formed his first band, The Quarrymen, in 1957, which went on to become The Beatles the next year with the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison. The Beatles, which disbanded in 1970, are estimated to have sold more than a billion records world-wide.

Following his break-up with the Beatles, Lennon continued on with a successful solo career.

"Imagine," probably Lennon's most popular solo album, was released in 1971. Its title track, a utopian song by the same name, has been adopted by peace activists around the world as an unofficial anthem.

Lennon was married twice and had a son with each wife. He and Yoko Ono, his second wife, held "bed-ins" during their honeymoon in 1969, allowing the world press into their hotel room as a show of protest against the Vietnam War.

On December the 8th, 1980, Lennon was shot by disturbed fan, Mark David Chapman, in front of his New York apartment building, where he lived with Ono and their son Sean.