My visit to Dallas, 10 years ago.... November 16, 2003 Dallas revisited : 40 years later, visitors keep coming to JFK assassination scene By Randy Kraft of The Morning Call As I turn off the interstate and drive beneath a railroad underpass into the heart of the city, my surroundings suddenly look strangely familiar -- although Ive never been here before. Ive just entered one of the most famous spots in American history, the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated nearly 40 years ago. Love Field. Dealey Plaza. The Texas School Book Depository. The grassy knoll. For decades, Americans have had these images of a national tragedy ingrained into our consciousness through photographs, documentaries and movies. The murder that shocked the world and humbled and scarred this proud Texas city ironically gave Dallas its most popular attraction, one with a deliberately innocuous name: The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The museum is on the sixth floor of the former book depository, from where Lee Harvey Oswald fired at least some of the shots that assassinated the president, according to government investigations. The museum is the most intellectually and emotionally satisfying place for those who come to Dallas to learn about the assassination. Windows on the sixth floor of the orange brick building overlook Dealey Plaza, a small park sliced by several streets. At 12:30 p.m. Nov. 22, 1963, the presidents motorcade was moving slowly down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass in the plaza, after a triumphant parade through the center of Dallas. Three or four shots were fired. One hit Kennedy in the neck, another in the head. Thepresident was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Several witnesses, including a local newspaper photographer, saw a rifle protruding from a sixth-floor window of the book depository. Many other bystanders charged the grassy knoll, certain the shots came from there. More than 2 million visitors come to Dealey Plaza each year, according to the Sixth Floor Museum staff. It is the most visited historic site in North Texas. Visitors walk on the lawns, look at the street, point to the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the old book depository, take a few pictures and try to imagine that day. The only guides are free-lance conspiracy theorists determined to convince visitors of various plots about the assassination while selling CDs and publications. One even has a computer set up in a concrete pergola next to the grassy knoll. What makes Dealey Plaza extraordinary is that it is so completely ordinary. The roads, the buildings, the lawns, the underpass -- it could be in any American city. Flocks of pigeons rest beneath a tree near the wooden fence on the grassy knoll. Trains noisily screech across the railroad bridge. Thousands of cars leaving center-city at the end of each day pound down Elm Street, their drivers perhaps oblivious to the fact that they are passing over the spot where a president was killed. I find myself thinking the place deserves more attention, if not respect. I expect more signs, or a monument or something. This is, after all, a nation that turns its old battlefields into national parks. At first I find no signs explaining what happened here. A small plaque on the lawn near Elm Street states the plaza has been designated a National Historic Landmark, but doesnt explain why. It only says this site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America. A statue of George B. Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News and a champion of city planning, stands at the top of the plaza, but there is no statue of Kennedy. Finally, I find two large plaques about the assassination, along Houston Street at the eastern end of the plaza. A map on one shows the route of the presidents motorcade. The 1991 Oliver Stone movie JFK sparked renewed interest in the assassination, including that of many Americans too young to remember it. Hollywood temporarily restored much of Dealey Plaza to its 1963 appearance for JFK filming in Dallas. Now money is being raised for a $3 million project to permanently restore the plaza and buildings around it to their appearance in 1963. This was a park for more than 20 years before the assassination, on land considered the birthplace of Dallas, because it is where the citys first buildings stood. It also was considered the proud gateway into the city. No formal ceremonies or memorial services will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination in Dealey Plaza next Saturday. Since 1983, the city has honored the Kennedy familys request to celebrate the slain presidents birthday rather than commemorating the day he died. But around noon on Nov. 22 each year, people spontaneously gather in the plaza to remember that day in Dallas. Tragedys history Although Kennedy was in office just over 1,000 days before he was killed, public opinion polls continue to rank him as one of our nations greatest presidents. He came to Texas to build up support for his re-election. Dallas was part of a five-city itinerary. His wife was accompanying him on a tour for the first time since the death of their infant son, Patrick. Before Kennedy arrived in Dallas, his staff had newspapers publish the parade route so people would know where to go see him. The president ordered the bubble top, which was not bulletproof, removed from his limousine. An estimated 250,000 people enthusiastically greeted Kennedy along the motorcade route. He ordered his limo to stop several times so he could shake hands. Just before the shots were fired, Nellie Connally, wife of wounded Texas Gov. John Connally, told Kennedy: Mr. President, you cant say Dallas doesnt love you. Immediately after the assassination, hundreds of wreaths and flowers were placed in Dealey Plaza by Dallas residents, along with cards containing phrases such as please forgive us and God forgive us all. Many in Dallas wanted to tear down the book depository. But visitors kept coming to see the assassination site and those who felt the building should be preserved prevailed. On Nov. 22, 1993, the 30th anniversary of the assassination, the National Park Service dedicated the building and plaza as part of Dealey Plaza Historic Landmark District. Inside the sixth floor The Sixth Floor Museum opened in 1989 in what is now the Dallas County Administration Building. The museum summarizes Kennedys life, death and legacy. Except for carpeted floors and exhibits, its interior retains the feel of a warehouse, with whitewashed brick walls and exposed beams and pipes. The museum tells its story chronologically, primarily through text, photographs and black-and-white film footage -- some shown on TV monitors, some on larger screens. You can watch TV commentator Walter Cronkite remove his glasses and struggle to maintain his composure after announcing the assassination. Hearing a radio broadcast of that first special bulletin from ABC is chilling: Three shots were fired at President Kennedys motorcade today in downtown Dallas, Texas. Equally moving are the notes of Taps heard during the presidents funeral. Unnarrated footage shows mourners wiping tears from their eyes as thousands pass the presidents funeral bier in the Capitol rotunda. Surprisingly few assassination artifacts are on display. Exceptions include the original sixth floor window, police handcuffs Oswald wore when he was shot, an FBI model of Dealey Plaza used by Warren Commission investigators and 13 cameras used by spectators in the plaza. A snipers perch created from boxes of school books was found at an open window overlooking the plaza, along with three spent cartridges. A rifle was found hidden among boxes in another corner of that floor. Both areas, now behind glass walls in the museum, look much as they did that day -- complete with cardboard book boxes. Oswald worked in the depository for a month before the shooting. Visitors hear portions of Kennedys speeches and watch him playing with his children. On Saturday, the museum will open a new exhibit on the seventh floor of the building: Remembering Jack: Intimate and Unseen Photographs of the Kennedys. They were taken by the late Jacques Lowe, Kennedy photographer during his rise to power. On Saturday and next Sunday, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will present the Dallas premiere of Leonard Bernsteins Mass, which was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for the 1971 opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Dallas does not have educational tours regularly taking visitors to key sites relating to the assassination, probably because the scar still is too fresh. In addition to the motorcade route and hospital where Kennedy was taken, such tours could include Oswalds boarding house, the street where he murdered Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit; the theater where he was captured, and the police station where Jack Ruby killed Oswald, an event that was nationally televised. Kennedy Memorial Just two blocks east of Dealey Plaza is the John F. Kennedy Memorial, a gift from the people of Dallas. Its a four-sided roofless structure in the center of a city block. Inside the bland concrete walls is a low, black granite slab containing just three gilded words: John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Dedicated in 1970 and restored in 1999, the memorial is designed to symbolize the freedom of Kennedys spirit. Perhaps intentionally, the memorial feels unfinished. It seems a statue of Kennedy should stand on top of the low, granite slab. Or that an eternal flame should flicker in the center of it, like the one on Kennedys grave in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Intended to be an enclosed space of quiet refuge, the stark memorial was designed by architect Philip Johnson at Jacqueline Kennedys request. A conspiracy? Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, according to information in the Sixth Floor Museum, which addresses but does not attempt to resolve controversies and conspiracy theories. Even a Texas Historic Landmark plaque at the street level of the building states it gained national notoriety when Oswald allegedly shot and killed the president from the sixth-floor window. In 1979, a House Committee investigating the assassination concluded not only that Oswald did fire the shots that killed the president, but also that a second gunman fired a fourth shot from the grassy knoll but missed. The committee determined the president probably was assassinated as a result of an unknown conspiracy. Later investigations ruled there was no conspiracy. Thousands of books and articles have been written about the assassination and everyone from the Dallas police department to the Mafia to the federal government to the Soviet Union has been named as co-conspirators. Conspiracy Museum Conspiracy theory buffs might want to check out the Conspiracy Museum, which is across Market Street from the Kennedy Memorial. I expected it to be more professionally done. Staffer Ron Rice says all the exhibits are about to be overhauled for the 40th anniversary of the assassination. The museums position is that Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA, with assistance from the Mafia and FBI. Its not our job to change peoples minds, says Rice. If people want to think Oswald did it, thats fine. But we do feel the entire story needs to be told. randy.kraft@mcall 610-820-6557 TOP 10 DALLAS-AREA ATTRACTIONS Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Bronze herd of longhorn cattle in Pioneer Plaza Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center Nasher Sculpture Center Six Flags Over Texas theme park Dallas Museum of Art Reunion Tower Gilleys entertainment complex West Village and Deep Ellum for dining, shopping and nightlife West End Historic District Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:32:01 +0000
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