QUICK TAKES - May 12, 2009

A new John Lennon exhibit is particularly emotional for his widow, Yoko Ono. Besides Lennon’s guitars, letters and other personal effects, it also includes a paper bag containing the bloody clothes from the night he was shot to death.

Ono received the items from the medical examiner in December 1980, when the former Beatle was gunned down in New York City at age 40.

“It was hard to include,” Ono said. “And I thought it might be criticized as well.”

But ultimately, Ono thought it was important to let people see the effects of gun violence.

The Lennon items are part of a new exhibit that will launch Tuesday at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex. “John Lennon: The New York Years” includes Lennon’s famous New York City T-shirt, his upright piano from his Dakota apartment, and a posthumous 1981 Grammy Award for the couple’s album “Double Fantasy.”