Sonny Bono Memorial Park

Salvatore “Sonny” Bono was born in Detroit to poor Sicilian immigrants on February 16, 1935. When he was seven years old, his family left Michigan and moved to southern California, settling near Los Angeles. As a teenager, Bono dropped out of high school and worked at a series of odd jobs while writing music and attempting to break into the music industry. In his twenties, he found employment as a singer and songwriter for Specialty Records, where he worked with Sam Cooke and Little Richard. Later, Bono worked for renowned record producer Phil Spector and sang backup for a number of music groups, including the Righteous Brothers. 

The turning point in Bono’s entertainment career came in 1962 when he met the sixteen-year-old aspiring singer Cherilyn Sarkisian, who went by the name of Cher. Despite the twelve-year age difference and the fact that he was married, the two hit it off and soon after began writing and recording songs together. Bono divorced his first wife, Donna Rankin, that same year and married Cher in 1964. The following year, the husband-and-wife duo released “I Got You Babe,” which became a number-one pop hit. In 1967, they released “The Beat Goes On.” Four years later, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour debuted on CBS. The popular variety show ran until 1974, when the couple separated. Their divorce became final the following year. 

After his show with and marriage to Cher ended, Bono more or less stepped away from the entertainment business. In the 1980s, he entered the restaurant industry when he opened Bono’s, an Italian restaurant in Palm Springs, California. His experience as a restauranteur, in fact, motivated Bobo to become involved in politics, something that would define his later years. While attempting to install a new sign at his restaurant, he became angry and frustrated by the amount of red tape that he had to clear. In 1988, as a Republican, Bono successfully ran to become mayor of Palm Springs. Four years later, he made an unsuccessful bid at capturing the Republican nomination for one of California’s seats in the U.S. Senate. In 1994, Bono won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing California’s Forty-Fourth Congressional District. He was reelected in 1996. 

Bono’s life was tragically cut short in 1998. On the afternoon of January 5, while on vacation with his family at the Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe, California, the congressman went off to ski on his own. After he failed to return several hours later, his family reported him missing. That evening, rescue crews discovered his body at the base of a forty-foot-tall pine tree. Investigators concluded that Bono, while attempting to ski through a wooded area, accidently crashed into the tree, sustaining massive head trauma as a result. He was sixty-two years old. 

Shocked and saddened by the death of his close friend, Washington, D.C. developer Geary Simon decided to create a park in Bono’s honor. Utilizing the city’s Adopt-A-Park program, he adopted an 800-square-foot traffic triangle at the intersection of O Street, New Hampshire Avenue, and Twentieth Street. The small plot of land near Dupont Circle was overgrown with weeds, sprinkled with litter, and infested with rats. Over the course of several months, Simon spent almost $50,000 of his own money to renovate the space. He installed a sprinkler system, stone benches, lighting, Kentucky bluegrass, and a tree from Bono’s California congressional district. On the ground at the entrance to the pocket park, Simon placed a bronze circular dedicatory plaque, underneath which he buried a time capsule containing various items related to the entertainer-turned-politician. The park opened to visitors in 1998, the same year as Bono’s death. 

Blitz, Matt. "How DC Ended Up With a Park Dedicated to Sonny Bono." Washingtonian, July 31, 2015 <https://www.washingtonian.com/2015/07/31/sonny-bono-park-dc-geary-simon/>.

History.com Editors. "Sonny Bono killed in skiing accident." History. A&E Television Networks. 7 January 2021. Web. 2 February 2021 <https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sonny-bono-killed-in-skiing-accident>.

Upton, Geoffrey C. "Among Friends." The Baltimore Sun, August 1, 1998 <https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-08-01-1998213086-story.html>.

Weinraub, Bernard. "Sonny Bono, 62, Dies in Skiing Accident." The New York Times, January 7, 1998 <https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/07/us/sonny-bono-62-dies-in-skiing-accident.html>.