"MY FATHER STILL MOURNS YOUR DEATH"

Robert Groden

Images of Dealey Plaza - An Introduction

DALLAS -- Some cities have prettier skylines than others  and prettiness is indeed in the eye of the beholder. But every time I see the skyline of Dallas headed towards me on I-35 North, I can't escape the feeling that it wants to scratch your eyes out, if not do something even worse. 
The huge office buildings, mostly all built post-1985, have sharp, pencil-lead edges, and glass and steel that doesn't seem to reflect much of anything except its own malevolent presence. 

In a state whose unofficial slogan commands people not to mess with it under any circumstances, even Texans are afraid of Dallas is seen as the place best not messed with by anyone, even Texans. Friends of mine from West Texas, where bullets fired in Juarez drug wars occasionally land on people in downtown El Paso, tell me they try to stay away from Dallas. 

There are areas of vast, almost unimaginable wealth in Dallas but very little of it is concentrated downtown. 
It's as if glamor has been extracted from downtown and moved to the suburbs, where the gigantic ranches, the palatial estates and the country clubs are located. All that's left for downtown Dallas are giant skyscrapers, steel park benches, thousands of security cameras, hyper-vigilant policemen on bicycles and a large, very aggressive homeless population. 

In most cities I tend to ignore the people asking me for a cigarette or bus fare but every time I go to Dallas, which has been frequently lately, I go to the bank and turn a $20 bill into two fives and 10 singles just to stave off the street beggars, most of whom complain, rightfully so, about the stringent restrictions on emergency food assistance by the county and state. 

Since my work requires me to walk through downtown Dallas frequently, the $1 bills are a way to keep the dangerous street people away and provide microassistance to the friendly, talkative street people for a few seconds with requests for more until a friendly "I'm short, man" or "I'm struggling too," neither statement being untrue, leaves them satisfied. 

My new homeless buddy, having just successfully scored a cigarette and some friendly conversation with me, asks me how long I plan on staying. I'm taking some pictures and taking some notes, so I tell him I'm going to be a few minutes. He asks me if I'll watch his jacket for him while he goes off to try and make some money. It's a sign of street trust. I tell him sure. 

He heads down the grassy hill where we are standing, produces a selection of newspapers , and asks the tourists questions, gesturing at the red brick building behind us and to our left. 

We are in Dealey Plaza and the building he is gesturing towards was once known as the Texas School Book Depository. It's gone by many names in the past hundred years -- its current title is Dallas County Administration Building, where the county commissioners meet -- but it will forever be associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 when a troubled ex-Marine and a father of two, Lee Harvey Oswald, allegedly fired bullets from a $13 mail-order rifle into the back, and then the skull, of Kennedy. 

The structure I am standing near is known as a plinth. It's too high off the ground to sit or stand on it, so it's mostly used as a coffee table and as a subject of photos snapped by tourists. In November 1963, businessman Abraham Zapruder stood on top of it, steadied by one of his office assistants, and used his high-end Super 8 movie camera to film JFK's murder, in sickening detail. 

Now it's the temporary home of my iPad, streaming live video to my friends on USTREAM, my umbrella and a Big Gulp, the 79-cent self-proclaimed "King of Cold," purchased from the nearby 7-Eleven, one of many Dallas-based corporation with a menacing, vaguely threatening skyscraper headquarters.  

There is an X painted in the street at the point where the final bullet, the one that quite literally blew Kennedy's brains out. 

It's slow today at Dealey Plaza; the weather is overcast and only a few people dot the sidewalk, hardly good prospects for a street person peddling old newspapers with JFK conspiracy theories. Earlier my friend said he could make $100 on a good day and only made $5 today despite being there three or four hours. 

On sunny days, the sidewalk is crowded with young families, many of whose parents order their young children to stand on the X while they take a picture. It's a profound philosophical notion to stand on the exact spot where someone died, much less photograph oneself there. Forcing your two-year-old daughter to do so requires an entirely new system of philosophy. 

But maybe not. Erykah Badu stripped naked and laid down on the X for a music video. The X is a good reference point from which to look up and see the window where Oswald (or someone) fired the shot that killed Kennedy. There are very few places on earth where the course of history was irreovacbly changed and the X painted in the street is one of them.  

The assassination of JFK, which for decades was an open wound on the soul of America, is now a 51-year-old scar, faded and healed. The generation most affected by it is dead or dying and the number of people rabidly investigating the murder in hopes of finding new evidence has mostly given up by now, the case having been gone over so many times that there are no more leads to pursue. 

But Dealey Plaza remains, a two acre urban park originally known as the front door to Dallas. It was built on land reclaimed when the Trinity River was diverted a mile away and its iconic colonnades were built in the 1930s to create a unique urban green space where people could relax and reflect. 

John F. Kennedy probably knew nothing of the plaza or its history as his motorcade made the sharp turn onto Elm Street and he likely would not have cared. Dallas was dangerous territory for him politically. The city was long home to the Ku Klux Klan, lwhich only left town after civic leaders convinced the Klan their presence there was bad for business. In 1963, as now, it was a hotbed of far-right politics, a visceral distrust of the federal government and especially the president.  

But Kennedy was a gambler, used to taking big risks both as president and in his personal life. He nearly died fighting in World War II and suffered from so many illnesses that his brothers said they feared for the safety of any mosquito brave enough to ingest Jack's blood. He knew the establishment in Dallas, along with a substantial part of its population, hated him passionately. He also knew that a plurality of the city adored him and this motorcade through Dallas was for them. They loved him, lining up a dozen deep along Main Street to catch a glimpse of him and his beautiful wife. 

By the time the motorcade turned right on Houston Street from Main, the motorcade was almost over. The crowds were thinning out. The visit of JFK to Dallas had been a stunning success so far and the speech he was about to deliver at the planned luncheon was a fierce denunciation of the ruling class in Dallas and of extremism in general.  

John F. Kennedy was 200 yards from making it out alive when his car passed the Texas School Book Depository. The following events were documented in the Zapruder film, two official investigations and thousands upon thousands of books speculating on why Kennedy was killed. 

It also bought Dealey Plaza, this most humble, unassuming place a ticket into the history books and ensured at least five decades of visitors to wander its grounds, reflect upon what happened and, now, to take selfies of themselves standing on the spot where his brain exploded under the force of a bullet or bullets. 

I motion to my homeless buddy and, seeing me packing up my gear, comes over to retrieve his jacket. He's had a little bit of success in the past few minutes, adding another $5 to his earnings for the day. Not enough to make it a good day, necessarily, but less of a bad one. The cops, notorious in Dallas for ticketing homeless people, had left him alone, he'd made a few bucks and he's run into me, a familiar face usually good for some conversation and a five dollar bill. 

For the first time, he notices my visitor's badge from the research room at the Sixth Floor Museum, the building formerly known as the Texas School Book Depository. He asks me what it's for and why he sees me here so often. 

I tell him I'm writing a book. He asks what it's about, what my particular take on the assassination is. He knows them all, because he uses them all in his sales pitches for his JFK magazines.  

"I don't know what it's about," I said. "You. This place. Why the little children have to stand on the X. Why I'm here. Why I come here every time I'm in town."