Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Sixth Floor Museum (JFK)

(Mansfield, TX)  Hi 93 Lo 77 – For our first day in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area we decided to head to downtown Dallas to see the Sixth Floor Museum and the Dealey Plaza area to learn about and remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I think everyone in our age group remembers where they were the day Kennedy was shot. Those black and white TV reports we saw for days are ingrained in our memories, and we were looking forward to seeing the actual locations where it all happened.

The Dallas skyline was impressive as we approached it from the west on I-30.
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The Sixth Floor Museum is housed in the original building that was once the famous Texas Book Depository. The building now serves as the Dallas County Administration Bldg., but the 6th and 7th floors house the museum.
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The cost of admission is $12.50 for Sr. Citizens, and you get a set of earphones and an audio player to guide you through the exhibits. The entire tour takes between an hour and and hour and a half, and covers JFK from his 1960 campaign through his assassination. Photography isn’t permitted inside the 6th floor, but Dee and I snuck one photo each. Dee got a picture of the window from where Oswald shot the President. The boxes are to give it the original appearance as a book storage area.


The actual window was sealed off by glass, but I took this photo through the next window to the right in the photo above. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the “X” in the center of the street to mark the spot of the fatal shot.
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The audio tour of the exhibits was very informative, as were the kiosks with videos of the original news reports of the events surrounding that fateful day. It sure brought back memories. But I was looking forward to going back outside and walk around the area.

This is the famous grassy knoll, where it was first thought some shots came from.
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Here’s a closer look at the “X” on the street, which is just in front of the grassy knoll.
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I waited for a lull in the traffic and went out into the street and took this photo of the 6th floor window from the X mark. The window the shots came from is the square one on the right end of the building, second down from the top floor.
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In the same two or three square block area is Dealy Plaza Park, which commemorates the spot where the city of Dallas got its start.
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And nearby is the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza.
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It’s a simple 50-foot square enclosure with a flat marker inside with Kennedy’s name in gold.
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While walking around I couldn’t resist taking photos of some of the beautiful buildings in downtown Dallas. This is Old Red Museum of Dallas County History & Culture. I believe I read on a sign that the building used to be the Dallas County Courthouse.
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I’m not sure what this building is in the background, but it sure is pretty!
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Bank of America Plaza, the tallest building in Dallas at 921 feet (72 floors).
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It was very exciting to tour the Sixth Floor Museum and walk around and see the famous places that were such an important part of our youth. We headed back out of town toward home, and on the way we came across a place that I had read about but had no idea it was so close to us in Mansfield. It’s called Major League Dreams, and is a city-owned park consisting of eight baseball diamonds arrayed around a central clubhouse and restaurant.
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The neat thing about these ball fields is, they’re designed to be replicas of famous major league ball parks, both current and past. For instance, here’s Yankee Stadium.
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Boston’s Fenway Park, complete with the “Green Monster” left field wall.
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Chicago’s Wrigley Field. (No ivy on the walls though.)
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And of course, being a Cardinals fan, I couldn’t leave out Sportsmans Park, the Cards' home until 1966.
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These were beautiful fields, with artificial turf on the infields (including artificial “dirt”), and real grass outfields. The illusion of famous real ball parks was primarily along the outfield walls. All of them had the same consistent design around home plate, with chairback seats and very nice dugouts.
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One of the workers told us they primarily host softball leagues and little league baseball tournaments. Sure doesn’t look like the fields I played on in little league!

We’re back home now. Dee plans on watching the progress of Hurricane Isaac, and in a little while I’m heading about 19 miles north to Rangers Stadium in Arlington to see the Texas Rangers play the Tampa Bay Rays. Can’t Wait!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes, I too remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was shot.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see y'all still adventuring around the country!! Hope all is well and y'all are staying dry where you are with the storm rolling through Louisiana right now!
Joe Rosenberger
"Joey Bag O Donuts"

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