Last November marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been to Dealey Plaza once or twice before just to walk around the grassy knoll but had never been inside the Sixth Floor Museum. For something to do over our past three day weekend, Susan purchased tickets to the museum for the four of us and so that’s what we did last Sunday.
The (former) Texas School Book Depository located at 411 Elm Street in Dallas, Texas is about as nondescript of a building as you could build. It’s square and orange and bland and was built in 1903. I’m sure had the architects known what historic significance it would ultimately have, they would have made it fancier. As it is, the corners and edges inside the building are as sharp, unimaginative and cold as the outside. The most notable portion of the building is the sixth floor window on the southeast corner, from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The sixth floor of the building has been turned into a museum. Using a modified iPod and a set of headphones, visitors make their way through the self-guided tour, which takes about an hour. Photography is “strictly prohibited” in the museum which stopped me from taking pictures, but not dozens of other people who have posted their pictures online — I’ve borrowed a few of them for this post.
(Courtesy of Google Images)
The information panels at the museum take visitors from Kennedy’s election to his funeral. To be honest, for anyone who has ever read a book or watched a television special about the Kennedy assassination, there’s not much new material here. Mason even made the comment that he had heard “all of this before,” which is probably true. I can’t recommend going to the museum solely for the purpose of learning more about the assassination. Of course that’s not why most people go. Most people go for this:
(Courtesy of Google Images)
That is “the” window. Those are not “the” boxes, which were taken for fingerprint evidence. But those are “the” lights and that is “the” floor and that is “the” window.
Although visitors are not permitted to take photographs on the sixth floor, you are allowed to do so from the seventh floor. The window I shot the following picture from is directly above “the” window. In the middle lane (in between the two cars in my picture) is a white “X” in the road. That is where Kennedy was shot. My initial thought while looking from the window is that it’s not as far away as you might think.
Other than Oswald’s impromptu cardboard sniper’s nest, the only other thing I would have liked to have taken a picture of inside the museum was this display. Fortunately, someone else did.
(Courtesy of Google Images)
On the left behind glass is the suit Detective Jim Leavelle was wearing as he was escorting Lee Harvey Oswald. Hanging from the left hand sleeve of the suit are the handcuffs that connected Leavelle and Oswald. On the right hand display under glass is the hat Jack Ruby wore when he shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Both this display and the sniper’s nest gave me goosebumps.
After exiting the museum the four of us headed down to the Grassy Knoll. This small plaque states that on this pedestal (technically a “plinth“), Abraham Zapruder filmed perhaps the most famous and important home video of all time.
I can’t say the museum is a fun place to visit and the amount of information it provides could be gleaned by watching a single A&E special, but I will say that looking out the window of the Texas School Book Depository out onto the Grassy Knoll is quite chilling even today, even for someone who wasn’t alive when those history-changing shots were fired.
What reason, if any, do they give for not allowing photography? That’s a very odd rule. The sort of thing that would keep me from coming back (and to the left).
I wasn’t sure so I looked and found this on their website:
Q: Why is photography prohibited?
A: Photography is not permitted in the exhibit galleries because it can be distracting to other visitors and because most of the images on exhibit are copyrighted. Visitors are welcome to take photographs from the seventh floor window, outside and in the Visitors Center.
I could almost go with the distracting part, as the whole museum is laid out funky and there are a lot of “tight quarter” spaces. As for the copyrighted images on exhibit, that seems odd.
Of course, everybody goes through the “where were you when you heard?” thing, and most of us remember. But I can tell you I was watching TV when Ruby shot Oswald. It was one of those things where you’re not really sure what you actually saw, until they showed it over and over later. It was truly “reality TV.”
Like you, I wasn’t alive when Kennedy was assassinated (I’m a “where were you when 9/11/01 happened” guy). I know facts and figures more of as an abstract – like, what would have happened had Kennedy NOT been gunned down. Where would the country be today? Would his brother Robert have been elected? What about Teddy? The questions and postulations are truly limitless. I’ve watched lots of specials, and have sat through the rather-long (and obviously slanted) Oliver Stone film, and I really think there is a “there” there, when talking about conspiracies. Don’t know what it is, just a gut feeling. Let’s say that it starts with the route of the motorcade…
I’m convinced that the no photography rule does exist because of the distraction factor – not for the other visitors, but for yourself…the photographer. They have a timed entry system and if you’re piddling around taking pictures, you’ll hose up the whole traffic flow. There ya go.