The fifth person off the plane was worried that the four in front of him had forgotten what he wanted them to do.
He wanted them to turn around.
He wanted to snap their photograph with the giddy, screaming crowd in the background. But the four — the Beatles, arriving in the United States for the first time — were as caught up in the excitement as the fans on the other side of the barricades at Kennedy International Airport on Feb. 7, 1964, 60 years ago today.
Harry Benson, on assignment for The Daily Express of London, was the only newspaper photographer on the Beatles’ plane, and he was determined to get one more exclusive as they went down the stairs onto the tarmac.
“He grabbed Ringo’s coat and said, ‘Turn them around,’” Benson’s wife, Gigi, said, jumping into the conversation as he told me the story. Ringo Starr complied with the order, and the others followed. Benson shot three frames.
Benson has told the story often, in books and in Vanity Fair magazine. “I wanted a picture that nobody else could get, because that was what the London Daily Express wanted,” he told me. A photo editor for the newspaper had scored a coup, getting Benson access to the Beatles and a seat on the plane if he were to join them first in Paris, where they had gone in mid-January.
The Daily Express published Benson’s photo with a first-person account, attributed to George Harrison, about how surprised the Beatles were at the scene. The article quoted Starr as having said, of fans, “there won’t be many there — the airport’s too far out of the city.”
Harrison added: “Was he wrong!”
Full-fledged Beatlemania
Beatlemania, a word that apparently was coined a few months earlier, continued as a motorcade carried the Beatles to Manhattan, where they were to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” one of the highest-rated television programs in the country. Crowds longed for a glimpse of John or Paul or George or Ringo through a window of their suite at the Plaza Hotel.
The Beatles weren’t the only ones in the air on the day they landed. President Lyndon Johnson was flying to Texas for a friend’s funeral. The day before, he had visited the headquarters of The New York Times and, despite a cold rain, had ventured out to shake hands. He did not get the kind of reception the Beatles would get. “The crowds in West 43rd Street were thin,” The Times reported.
The Times’s article about the Beatles’ arrival appeared on Page 25. “The Beatles Invade, Complete With Long Hair and Screaming Fans,” the headline said. The story said: “Multiply Elvis Presley by four, subtract six years from his age, add British accents and a sharp sense of humor. The answer: It’s the Beatles (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah).”
Everyone’s a photographer, or an author
Somewhere along the way, Paul McCartney photographed Benson. “I wasn’t too keen on them with cameras at all,” Benson said of the Beatles. “You know, they gave the odd roll of film to opposition newspapers like The Daily Mirror, The Daily Mail. It was a problem.” (Some of McCartney’s photographs were shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London last year. That exhibition is scheduled to move to the Brooklyn Museum in May.)
The Beatles left New York after cementing a unique kind of fame. Benson stayed behind and had a long career as a photojournalist, capturing everyone from Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He photographed Robert Kennedy as he was dying after being shot in 1968.
Last night Benson, now 94, was on hand for a screening of the documentary “Harry Benson: Shoot First” at the Museum of Arts and Design and a dinner given by the museum’s chair emerita, Barbara Tober.
In the 60 years since the Beatles’ arrival at Kennedy, Benson has published more than a dozen books. McCartney recently published one, too: “1964: Eyes of the Storm.” And so has Debbie Gendler, who was in the audience for “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Her book is titled “I Saw Them Standing There,” a twist on the early Beatles classic.
“What we’ve really seen is a new revitalization of Beatles fans that is, for me, amazing,” Gendler, now 73, told me this week. “As I’m growing older, they’re coming into this Beatles thing younger and younger. I can’t tell you how many people I know who are grandparents and are amazed the grandchildren are singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Octopus’s Garden.’”
“The staying power of the Beatles,” she said, “is like a storm that keeps picking up energy as it goes.”
Weather
Expect a sunny day in the high 40s. At night mostly clear in the low 30s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Friday (Lunar New Year’s Eve).
The mayor asks for $4.6 billion for the migrant crisis
Mayor Eric Adams told state lawmakers that New York City needed $4.6 billion to cover half of the cost of caring for migrants seeking refuge in the city.
That amount is far more than the $2.4 billion that Gov. Kathy Hochul had just agreed to, which was, in turn, more than double last year’s proposal.
“We need more,” Adams said in Albany on what is known as Tin Cup Day, when local leaders make their budget pitches to the state. The comment came in an exchange with State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat from Manhattan, who had asked if cuts in the city budget would be restored if the $2.4 billion were to come through.
City officials had hoped to divide the cost of sheltering migrants equally among the city, state and federal governments. But federal officials refused to commit to that arrangement, leaving the city to press the state for more funds.
Adams also asked lawmakers to expand the city’s borrowing power and his control over the public school system, and to give the city the authority to address illegal cannabis vendors.
The mayor mostly got a warm reception. But during a later exchange about the request to increase the borrowing limit, Senator John C. Liu, a Democrat from Queens, questioned the mayor’s priorities.
“So what will come first, schools or the jails?” the senator asked the city’s budget director, Jacques Jiha.
Jiha laughed, saying it was a good question.
“Say ‘schools’ quickly before I run out of time,” Liu said.
“We have three major — —” Jiha began.
Lui cut him off. “Wrong answer,” he said.
METROPOLITAN diary
Table for two
Dear Diary:
I was in the East Village and went to Veselka, planning to get a quick lunch. I was disappointed when the hostess said it would be 15 minutes for a table for one.
As I considered what to do, an older woman who was in front of me in line leaned toward the hostess.
“If we’re together, can we be seated now?” the woman asked.
“I guess so,” the hostess said, looking momentarily confused.
I said I was game, and we were led to a table. On our way, my new companion turned to me.
“Conversation is optional!” she said.
That, of course, kicked off an hour of nonstop chitchat. It turned out that we lived about 10 blocks from each other in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and that our children had gone to the same school.
