Paul Simon played a free concert in Central Park for an audience of around 750,000 New Yorkers. Simon had returned to the states after an extensive world tour of The Rhythm of the Saints. The show was an end-of-tour celebration that would see Paul Simon take to the stage with a number of friends.

According to Mar Eliot’s Paul Simon: A Life, “the idea originated this time with Mayor David Dinkins…Now that the city was rebounding after a difficult period, Mayor Dinkins thought it might be a nice gift to the citizens who had been through so much over the past decade.”

The performance was released as both a double live-album and as a concert video.