Dealey Plaza

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Dealey Plaza (Warren Commission exhibit #876)

Dealey Plaza, (pronounced dee-lee) in the historic West End district of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA), is famous as the location of the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963.

Contents

History

Dealey Plaza is a public park completed in 1939 on the west edge of downtown Dallas where three streets converge (Main Street, Elm Street, and Commerce Street) to pass under a railroad bridge known locally as the triple underpass. The plaza is named for George Bannerman Dealey (1859–1946), publisher of The Dallas Morning News and the man who had campaigned for the area's revitalization. Many believe the monuments outlining the plaza are there to honor President Kennedy, but they actually honor previous prominent Dallas residents, and predate President Kennedy's visit by many years. The actual Dallas monument to Kennedy, in the form of a cenotaph, is located one block away. Dealey Plaza is historically known as the site of the first Masonic temple in Dallas (now razed), and there is a marker attesting to this fact in the plaza.

Kennedy assassination

Main Article: John F. Kennedy assassination
Dealey Plaza in 2003.
Dealey Plaza is bounded on the south, east, and north sides by 100'+ tall buildings. One of those buildings is the former Texas School Book Depository building, from which both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald fired a rifle that killed the president. There is also a grassy knoll on the perimeter of the plaza, from which the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined there was a "high probability" that a second gunman also fired at President Kennedy, but missed. At the plaza's west perimeter is a triple underpass beneath the railroad bridge, under which the motorcade raced after the shots were fired.

Today, the plaza is typically filled with tourists visiting the assassination site and the Sixth Floor Museum that now occupies the top two floors of the seven story former Book Depository. Since 1989, more than 5 million people have visited the museum.

One source of information that includes the location of each witness alone on a picture of the site with the witness's key testimony is found here [1] One of the better-scaled maps of Dealey Plaza showing witnesses' locations and observations, suspected assassins' locations, evidentiary artifacts, and other valuable information can be found here.

The path used by the motorcade. North is almost directly to the left.

After the assassination, city leaders decreed that Dealey Plaza and the surrounding buildings would be maintained in their 1963 condition to preserve the area in honor of the fallen president. The United States government has declared Dealey Plaza a National Historic Landmark. Therefore, nothing of significance has been torn down or rebuilt in the immediate area. (A small plaque commemorating the assassination exists in the plaza.)

Visitors to Dealey Plaza today will see street lights and street signs that were in use in 1963, though some have been moved to different locations and others removed entirely. Buildings immediately surrounding the plaza have not been changed since 1963, presenting a stark contrast to the ultra-modern Dallas skyline that rises around it.

Over the last 40+ years, Elm Street has been resurfaced several times; street lane stripes have been relocated; sidewalk lamp posts have been moved and added; trees, bushes and hedges have grown; and some traffic sign locations have been changed, relocated or removed. In late 2003, the city of Dallas approved construction project plans to restore Dealey Plaza to its exact appearance on November 22, 1963. As of 2004, the funds to do so had been approved.

The "grassy knoll"

The Grassy Knoll.
The "grassy knoll" of Dealey Plaza is a small, sloping hill inside the plaza that became infamous following the John F. Kennedy assassination. The knoll was above President Kennedy and to his right (west and north) during the assassination on November 22, 1963.

The north grassy knoll is bounded by the former Texas School Book Depository building along the Elm Street abutment side street to the northeast, Elm Street and a sidewalk to the south, a parking lot to the north and east, and a railroad bridge atop the triple underpass convergence of Commerce, Main, and Elm streets to the west.

Located near the north grassy knoll on November 22, 1963, were several witnesses; three large traffic signposts; four sidewalk lamp posts; the John Neely Bryan north pergola cement structure, including its two enclosed shelters; a tool shed; one 3.3' high cement wall connected to each of the pergola shelters; ten tall, wide, low-hanging live oak trees; a 5' tall, wooden, cornered, stockade fenceline approximately 176' long; six street curb sewers openings, their sewer manholes, and their interconnecting large pipes; and numerous 2' to 6' tall bushes, trees, and hedges. Behind the picket fence was the train control tower which Lee E. Bowers was working in during the assassination; He claims to have seen 5 people from which 2 looked like policemen and 3 were welders; He also claims to have seen smoke emerge from where the 5 people were standing when the shots were fired.

The wooden fence. The grassy knoll is out of frame to the left.

Some assassination theories have concluded that a shot or shots came from the north grassy knoll during the assassination. The House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation from 1975 to 1979 concluded that there was a high probability that there were four shots fired at the president, and that there was a high probabilty that the third of four shots came from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, but missed. They also determined that "there was a probable conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy." This conclusion was based on a single piece of evidence: a Dictabelt recording of a stuck radio microphone on a police motorcycle that captured sounds thought to be the gunshots of the assassination. After the committee finished its work, crosstalk from another radio channel of transmissions known to have been made a minute after the assassination was found on the Dictabelt, proving that the sounds on the recording could not be the gunshots of the assassination.

Because of persistent debate, answered and unanswered questions, and conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination and the possible related role of the grassy knoll, the term "grassy knoll" has come to also be a modern slang expression indicating suspicion, conspiracy, or a cover-up.

External links

Copyright

"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 21, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."

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