Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Everyone says that they can remember what they were doing when they first heard the news.  I was thirteen at the time and in grade 8.  It was a history class in the middle of the afternoon, when our teacher came in and announced to the class that, “President Kennedy has just been shot.”  I thought that this couldn’t happen in this day and age.  But in fact it was true. It was a day that changed so many of us.  That was Friday, November 22, 1963. 

We were riveted to our TV sets as the networks broadcast every detail of the assassination and the state funeral.  The arrest and subsequent murder of the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald filled many hours of that very long weekend.  That was the first time that many of our generation ever experienced a loss like this.

The story of JFK, the assassination, conspiracy theories and the ensuing enquiries are told in the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. (WARNING! – The Abraham Zapruder film is very graphic-it is a home video so there is some personal stuff before the motorcade commences.) The museum is extremely well done and well presented. The corner of the sixth floor where Oswald had setup a sniper’s nest is glassed in much the same was as it would have appeared that day.  No photography was allowed in the museum.

In this city of growth and change, we were surprised to see little has changed since 1963.  Judging from the many photos that we saw the only difference is a couple of additional overhead traffic signs and the increased height of the trees.  There are a couple of white X’s on the road where the shots were fired and a simple, unassuming National Park Service marker near the grassy knoll that says, “ Dealey Plaza - This site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.”

One thing that we also noticed is that the Downtown area is kept immaculately clean. We saw two cleaning crews in the span of two blocks walking from our parking spot to the museum.  We also got a super deal on parking again in Downtown Dallas…$2.00 / day.  And there were attendants patrolling the lots.