The Beatles' first NYC trip still resonates 60 years after Fab 4 landed at JFK
Even the Beatles didn’t quite comprehend what awaited them in New York on Feb. 7, 1964.
Six days after “I Want to Hold Your Hold” broke through as their first No. 1 hit in the U.S., Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison braced for a warm welcome as Pan Am Flight 101 out of London neared its destination in Queens.
Never, however, did they expect the spectacle they found when they disembarked.
Some 3,000 fans, many of them smiling, shrieking, hysterical girls who skipped school on a Friday, ambushed JFK Airport, congregating along the rooftop and pushing past police barricades to catch a glimpse of the mop-topped British heartthrobs.
Delighted screams from overwhelmed teens served as the soundtrack as the grinning, waving Beatles stepped off of a Boeing 707 and onto American soil for the first time.
Those screams became a staple of McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison’s two-week trip, during which they made history on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” played back-to-back concerts at Carnegie Hall and journeyed down to Washington, D.C., and Miami Beach.
“No one will understand the emotion of us landing in America,” Starr told the Daily News in 2019. “But it was New York, and all of the music we loved came from there. It was just far out.”
Source: Peter Sblendorio/nydailynews.com
