By ELIOT WILDER / For some, it's Mount Everest. For others, it's the Vatican. For others still it's the Rosetta stone. For me, it's gotta be Abbey Road. This is not just any tree-shaded street: This was the boulevard in which EMI Studios was located, the facility where between 1962 and 1972 the Beatles recorded the majority of their 200-song legacy. It was the veritable hive, the epicenter of their creativity.

Because of that, and because the cover of the Fab Four's final album bearing that name is freighted with meaning and metaphors for millions of Beatle fans, many regard the zebra crossing in the homey London neighborhood of St. John's Wood as sanctified grounds. Especially now with the passing of George Harrison, it is a spot visited by thousands of fans the world over. It is also a spot that I recently made a pilgrimage to. Exiting the nearby Tube station, I excitedly asked a woman employed in the adjacent Abbey Road CafŽ just where I should go to find it. A watery smile came to her lips and she pointed, undoubtedly as she had hundreds of times before, at Grove End Road. "Follow that a couple of blocks and you'll come to ... it."

As I paraded, as Ringo would say, in a clipped pace along a street in an all-too average suburban community filled with chock-a-block apartment complexes, corner mini-marts and rest homes, I felt a mix of anxiety and serenity. Questions dashed through my mind. Would the mere sight of the crosswalk and the studio affect me in a way I hoped it would? Would I have an epiphany? Was I being just a little bit silly? My pace quickened.

Finally, I rounded the corner from Grove End Road onto Abbey Road itself, and there ... there it was. Finally seeing it was, in a word, surreal. Without meaning to sound mawkish, I felt truly moved. I was having a religious experience!

I immediately began snapping pictures of the crosswalk. I photographed the landmark studio. I photographed its surrounding white walls, which were graffitied with good-natured expressions like, "All You Need Is Love," "Macca's the Man, Yessir!" and, curiously, "Looking for Marty!" I even photographed a metal Abbey Road street sign (the original tiled one and the wall upon which it appeared was demolished to make way for a housing estate in the early '70s).

As I busied myself with taking pictures, a woman suddenly zipped her Mini up to the curb. She jumped out and shouted, breathlessly, "Did you see him? Did you see Paul McCartney?" "You're kidding," I said, "Paul? Here?" "Yes," she responded, "I saw him walk directly behind you and into the studio while you were snapping the street sign." The woman went on to say that she had lived in the area for 20 years - and had never once seen McCartney in the flesh. Great. I'd been there all of five minutes and he ambles right past me while I was being a bloody tourist!

I, along with about 20 other eager fans, waited all afternoon in front of Abbey Road studios in the hope that Sir Paul would re-materialize. It never happened. Still, just visiting the area, including Paul's longtime residence on nearby Cavendish Road, was for me both an inspiring and transcendent experience. So what if I had come to the mountain and happened to be facing the wrong way as Mohammed strolled by? In a way, I suppose, it makes for a more interesting story. Right, as the Brits would say.