This picture is of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Specifically, the window to the far right is the one where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot a bolt action rifle through a Texas Oak tree (which does not lose its leaves in the fall) and assassinated President John F. Kennedy. I shot this point of view because it was a key point in disproving the "Magic Bullet Theory". Basically the theory stands that Oswald shot from this window, through this foliage, and it passed through Kennedy and several times through Governor Connelly. Crazy. But then again, I'm a conspiracy theorist.
The City of Dallas has so obligingly marked an "X" on the street where the President received the shot to the back, then the fatal head wound. This picture is of the "X" that marks the spot where the shot - that I believe came from the Grassy Knoll - ripped open the right side of the President's skull and changed the course of history.
This was the first time a sitting President was assassinated since President McKinley in 1901. There's no one left who remembers that assassination, but there are plenty who remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. So here it is, the place where he was shot. Forever preserved with a white "X" on a busy street.
And finally, the area that that has caused so much controversy, speculation, and spawned legions of conspiracy theorists. The Grassy Knoll. Did a shooter prop a rifle on these blocks and aim to kill the President? Did this alleged gunman have accomplices behind him to wisk him away leaving Oswald in the Book Depository to take the fall? If this wall could talk...it would tell us the truth.
I loved visiting this area not out of some gruesome fixation on Kennedy's death, but because the area is preserved pretty much as it was when Kennedy was there. It's basically a crime scene that has become a tourist attraction. I highly recommend a visit there. Go - look around and see for yourself.
"The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy." John F. Kennedy
